PWC Board votes to halt wasteful stimulus spending -- for now

Tonight, in an emergency session, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 with 1 abstention to halt any action by any county employee to commit the spending of the latest Obama pork bill.

The action was made necessary when the school administration, with no input from either the PWC BOCS or the School Board, announced they would start hiring 180 teachers on provisional contracts and integrate them into the school system.

Defenders of this dubious move claimed that it would be too disruptive to add teachers later in the year, which presumes that we were going to do so, and ignores the much larger disruption if the money was not obtained, or the elected officials decided not to take the money -- requiring the firing of the provisional teachers, AND the re-arrangement of classes in the middle of the year.

Unfortunately, while the school administration was happy to give this story to the papers, and to start implementing the hiring, they had no financial people in town to discuss the matter with the board. Nobody at the meeting mentioned the implication of this -- which is that with the financial people on vacation, someone in the administration made a decision to spend money WITHOUT CONSULTING THEM. If on the other hand they DID get opinions, those opinions should have been brought to the meeting.

Several school board members showed up at the emergency session, called when several board members recognized the horrible mistake about to be made, and reasoned that they had to put a stop to it.

Only 5 board members were in town, just enough to make a quorum. This led to the most pathetic action of the evening, when Supervisor Principi, realising he was the only member of the five who wanted to vote to hire teachers without any guarantee of having the money, thought he could stop the vote by leaving the meeting room, thus denying the rest of the board a quorum.

Fortunately, Supervisor May, in a quick thinking action, called for the vote and took the count while Principi stood at the door, not even able to successfully pull off his own bizarre plot. It took the county attorney only a short time to decide that since Principi was standing in the room at the time of the vote, they had a quorum, and the vote counted.

No doubt Principi will be livid about this, and complain about some breach of proper procedure. Of course, he knows that if the school administration hadn't tried to pull this coup while Corey Stewart was out of the country, they'd have had the votes without him -- and likely at least one other missing board member would have joined the vote to stop the hiring.

The issue is still alive. The school board will meet to discuss the matter, and eventually the state will decide whether to take the money or not.

We learned from the meeting that the state is free to spend the money on next year's budget, which means in fact that there was no rush whatsoever to put the teachers in place now. If we wait, the money, while it is still rediculous pork spending, can be used to hire teachers we actually will need.

Congratulations to Supervisors May, Stirrup, Covington, and Nohe for recognizing a serious problem and acting swiftly to mitigate and prevent the damage. Shame on Principi for attempting to circumvent the democratic process by walking out on his responsibilities. This isn't Texas, Mr. Principi -- don't act like Texas Democrats, hiding in some other state to avoid granting quorums.

Now it's time for the School Board to do the right thing, and take this process deliberatively, and forget about trying to load up on teachers this year.

Our President is a Blooming Idiot, or a Liar

Obama wandered on a Fox set, and probably wishes he hadn't. They actually asked him a real question, and he turned into a complete idiot.

Asked about special deals still in the bill, he tried to justify the "Louisiana Purchase", where Landreau got $300 million dollars for her vote, and was proud of it.

As you may know, they can't really just say "Louisiana's Senator gets $300 million for her vote". Instead, they have to write something that applies to everybody who meets the "qualifications". Then they put enough qualifiers in so that, when it's done, only the targeted item is covered.

As the Lousiana Purchase was described:

According to ABC News's Jonathan Karl, Majority Leader Reid's (D-NV) bill has a provision increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for "certain states recovering from a major disaster." The section goes on for two pages defining which "states" would qualify, including states that "during the preceding 7 fiscal years" have been declared a "major disaster area."
How many states does that apply to? Exactly one state: Lousiana,

Got that? It applies to a state that, in the PREVIOUS 7 years, had a disaster, and only Loiusiana qualifies.

But Obama, the clueless one, said this on a NATIONAL TV Interview:

OBAMA: That also — I'm giving you an example of one that I consider important. It also affects Hawaii, which went through an earthquake. So that's not just a Louisiana provision. That is a provision that affects every state that is going through a natural catastrophe.

Got that? The bill explicitly says it's for states that PREVIOUSLY had a disaster, but Obama lied and said it covers states that are GOING through a natural catastrophe. He also lied about Hawaii having an Earthquake. Unless he meant Haiti, and thinks that Haiti is one of our 57 states.

This is how Obama wants to pass Health Care, by lying about it. I am sick and tired of liberals claiming that we are wrong about Obama lying. We have two lies in this one paragraph.

Unless you want to argue that Obama is just stupid. Which is probably true.

Your Government at Work, Census Bus Edition

Since in the next two weeks government will take over our health care, we ought to look around and see how government really operates. So today, let's look at the Census.

Or more specifically, the advertisement I heard today on the radio about the Census and public bus transportation. See, there's these 3 buses, and they take people around in the government-world of Census.

But if you don't fill out your Census, Government won't know how many people live in the big City. And if they don't know how many people there are, they won't know how many buses they need to serve the people, and you might not get a 4th bus that you need to get around.

Because, you see, in the Government world, services are not based on actually serving people. I mean, if it was, they'd just look at the bus and see how many people were sitting on it, and if they saw lots of empty seats, they'd know they had enough buses, and if the seats are all full, they'd add new buses.

But that's a market-based solution, and Government doesn't serve markets, it taxes people. So in Government-land, it makes no difference how many people actually RIDE the buses, it only matters how many people live in the city that they can tax to PAY for buses, and that they can claim they "provide service to" on the basis that the bus drives by their houses, or runs over their children, or whatever.

So we need the census to count the people so we can justify buying more buses we don't need to take people who don't want to ride to places they don't want to go.

Your Government At Work, Metro Edition

As you may know, last weekend was "spring forward" time, when we "lose" an hour of sleep. At 2am, we advanced our clocks to 3am.

Of course, if you were awake during that time, nothing really happens. Your late-night TV movie doesn't skip an hour, you aren't suddenly one hour hungrier, your homework isn't one more hour done. It's a totally non-physical phenomena.

That is, unless you are the Government. To the Government, that missing hour makes all the difference in the world. Imagine you are going down to party with some friends in Georgetown. You take metro, like a good citizen, because your partying until 2am, and metro is open until 3am, so there's plenty of time to get home.

There you are, and the time is getting late. 1am, 130am, 150am. Around 2am, they are ready to close the bar, and you are off to the Metro to get back to your car. Except that Metro is closed.

Because you see, Metro closes at 3am. Normally, that's 3 hours after midnight. But it's "spring forward time", and 2am is 3am. So they obviously have to do SOMETHING, right? Now for normal folks, the obvious thing is to change your closing time to 4am. After all, people will still be partying until 2am, and will still need to drive home. Nobody says "hey, we lose an hour, so we'll quit the party an hour earlier". They say "hey, we'll sleep in an hour".

But that's not how Government works. To government, 3am is 3am, and if for some reason 1:59:59 is followed by 3am, then the right thing to do is to close an hour early.

The only question is, when they punched out, did their timecards say 3am, and did they get paid for the hour.

, noting that they close at 3am (and not 3 hours after midnight), decided that since 2am was really 3a

Kiss your doctor goodbye.

There's at least a 1 out of 3 chance that, if Obamacare is "deemed to be passed", you won't be seeing your doctor anymore.

A Medical provider survey provides the grim reality of Obama's pipe dream of government takeover of our health system:

What if nearly HALF of all physicians in America suddenly stopped practicing medicine? Such a drastic decrease in the physician workforce could become a reality, depending upon how the healthcare reform legislation is implemented, and which version of health reform passes into law.

Imagine a world where half the doctors no longer practice. Now imagine that 30 million new people are seeking out non-emergency care, since they have been given free health care paid for with your tax dollars.

Imagine Disneyworld on a 75 degree sunny summer saturday. Sure, the rides look fun, but you can't get onto any of them.

But that's if they had a public option in the bill. What about the current bill? Not much better:

Interestingly, the numbers were not as dramatic, but still troubling, if the public option is not part of the equation. If health reform passes without the public option, 7.4% of physicians stated that they would quit practicing medicine, unless they were nearing retirement, in which case 21.8% said they would retire early, bringing the total loss of physician workforce to nearly one-third of physicians leaving medicine.

That means if there are 6 doctors in your office, and you've had to wait a week to get a routine office appointment, there will now be 4 doctors serving you and the newly blessed freeloaders.

OK, enough of the fearmongering. At least we'll have better health care, even if it's not actually available, right? Well, if there's one things doctors would know about, it's about the quality of care. And what doctors tell us?:

Over 50% of physicians who responded predict that a health reform would cause the quality of medical care to deteriorate in America. When asked how health reform could affect the quality of medical care, 40.7% stated it would "decline or worsen somewhat," while another 14.4% stated that the quality of medical care would "decline or worsen dramatically". If a public option is implemented as part of health reform, 64.1% of physicians predict that the quality of medical care in general will decline.

Fewer doctors, lower quality of care. Is that Change we can Believe In?

Health Care Suicide Bomber

State Senate passes gun bills.

Saturday's print edition of the Manasssas News/Messenger had this article: "Marsh manages to keep GOP-backed bills at bay". But so far as I can tell, this article is no longer available.

It's gone, and now the same paper has the article:
Senate approves controversial gun bills:

The Virginia Senate today approved two controversial House of Delegates gun bills that will allow permit holders to carry concealed handguns into bars and non-permit holders to conceal their firearms in cars.
...
The Senate votes on the House bills were split, with several rural Democrats siding with Republicans. House Bill 505 passed 25-15, while House Bill 885 passed 24-16. Democrats hold a 22-18 majority in the 40-member Senate.
...
Sen. David Marsden, D-Fairfax, called the bill allowing guns to be kept concealed in locked containers in cars “ill-advised public policy” that would increase the likelihood of firearms falling into the wrong hands.

Not sure what the previous rule was, but assuming it was that the gun had to be out in the open, I'm not sure I understand how hiding the gun makes it MORE likely for the wrong people to get hold of it.

Bolling explains why Senate move on Guns violates senate rules

A transcript of a PDF sent out by Bolling: (All spelling errors are mine):

During yesterday's floor session, Senator Vogel asked that I provide the members of the Senate with some guidance on whether or not a Senate subcommittee has the authority to take final action on a bill referred to it by a committee chairman.

In providing this guidance I am relying on the Rules of the Senate as adopted on January 18, 2010. There are several Rules that are pertinent to this discussion and those rules will be referenced below.

Rule 27 of the Rules of the Senate provides that:

Bills or resolutoins originating in the House of Delegates and communicated to the Senate shall be read by title the first time when received and referred to the appropriate committee unless otherwise directed by the Senate

NOTE: I sight this Rule because the bills that have given rise to the questions at hand all appear to be bills that originated in the House of Delegates.

Rule 20 (c) of the Rules of the Senate provides, in part, that:

All committees shall be governed by the Rules of the Senate.

Rule 20 (h) of the Rules of the Senate provides that:

The Chair of any commitee may appoint subcommittees to consider a particular bill or Resolution or to consider matters relative to a portion of the work of the committee. Such subcommittees shal make recommendations to the committee.

The plain reading of Rule 20 (h) is clear. While subcommittees may consider bills referred to them, the only authority given to a subcommittee under the Rules of teh Senate is to make recommendations to the full committee. The Rules of the Senate do not authorize a subcommittee to take final action on any bill.

In addition, I would note that every other Rule of the Senate that vests the power to take any action on a bill vests that power in the committee to which a bill has been referred. For example:

• Rule 20 (i) gives committees the power to confer with Committees of the House of Delegates
• Rule 20 (j) outlines how committees may dispose of bills referred to them
• Rule 20 (l) gives committees the power to refer the subject matter of bills to other agencies, commissions, boards, councils, or governmental or non-governmental entities
• Rule 20 (m) authorizes committees to seek and obtain the services of citizens to assist in the review of legislation.

The Rules of the Senate appear to vest all power and authority in committees. No such power and authority is vested in subcommittees under the Rules of Senate, and, as noted above, Rule 20 (h) would appear to directly limit the power of subcommittees to the consideration of bills referred to them and the making of recommendations to the full committee on how those bills should be disposed of.

As you know, the Senate has long prided itself on compliance with the Rules and traditions of the Senate. It is important that the Rules and traditions of the Senate be complied with when they advance members ultimate goals and objectives, and even when they do not.

Accordingly, and based on my objective interpretation of the Rules of the Senate, it is my belief that Senate subcommittees do not have the authority to take final action on any bill or resolution referred to them. The subcommittee can consider such bills and resolutions, but ultimately, the subcommittee is only empowered to make recommendations to the full committee.

Some members have suggested that Senate sub-committees should have the power to defeat bills because that is the practice of the House of Delegates. Unfortunately, the practice of the House of Delegates has no impact on the application of the Rules of the Senate.

In addition, I would note that the Rules of the House of Delegates specifically provide that subcommittees can take final action on the bills referred to them. The pertinent House rule is set forth below:

Rule 18 - The Chairman, at his discretion, may refer legislation for consideration to a subcommittee. If referred to a subcommittee, the legislation shall be considered by the subcommittee. If the subcommittee does not recommend such legislation by majority vote, the chairman need not consider the legislation in full committee.

In other words, the Rules of the House of Delegates specifically authorize subcommittees to take final action on bills referred to them. No similar authorization is contained in the Rules of the Senate. If it is the Senate's desire to vest this power in subcommittees, the Rules should be changed to clearly give subcommittees that authority.

I hope that the information contained in this Memorandum will be helpful in determining how these issues should be resolved in the future in accordance with the Rules of the Senate.

WTB/

I fear for our country

I have NEVER been as afraid for our country as I am today. Of course, I never would have suspected that our elected officials would propose, and our media would accept, the idea that a bill can be passed without voting on it.

Or that a bill that required 60 votes for senate rules could simply be changed after-the-fact with only 50 votes. Why would anybody in that last 10 vote for a bill, knowing that once they did, whatever was put in the bill to satisfy them could be removed by 50 of their colleagues?

Where does this leave Webb and Warner, who say they voted to move the process forward, certain that Reid would give them another chance to vote on the "final product"? Were they just stupid, or are they lying? How do they feel about Reid cutting Virginia off from having a final say on this bill?

Where are our house members, to stand up for what Virginia wants? We passed a bill with wide bipartisan support, rejecting the core of Obamacare. Why do they reject our will, for Nancy Pelosi?

The Nation has spoken, but our leaders aren't listening.

I close with these words from our Founders:

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.

I fear for our country. Where are the great Democrats who will stand up to tyranny, say "Enough is Enough", and bring the Democratic Party, and our country, back from the precipice?

WSJ: The Cost-Control Illusion

The WSJ explains how the democrats are lying about cost control, and that in fact Obamacare will destroy health care as we know it (this goes along with my discussions with doctors who say many will leave the profession because they will no longer be able to make money):

Above all other reasons, voters who oppose ObamaCare cite their fear over costs: They think it will cause their insurance premiums to soar and result in far higher taxes to fund a vast new entitlement. The public is right on both counts, which is why White House smokejumpers have been dispatched to put out this fire as the final votes approach.

Here are the reasons (I've taken snippets from the article to make a list:

• If this new entitlement actually "saves" money, it will be the first in history.
  
• When you subsidize something, you get more of it, which means higher demand for insurance and health-care services. Combine this with new mandates that have raised costs in every state where they have been tried, and you will get higher premiums.
  
• The Cadillac tax. This is the 40% excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that the White House proposed because it lacked the political will to directly reduce the $250 billion annual tax subsidy for employer-based insurance. ... Not to worry, says Mr. Orszag, the tax would still create a "gradually increasing incentive to seek higher-quality and lower-cost health plans." In other words, some future Congress will impose the pain Democrats refuse to impose today.
  
• About the "Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program," CBO says it will cut spending by $0 over 10 years
  
• The "National Pilot Program on Payment Bundling"? Also $0.
  
• But let's say Congress does cede power to this unelected group of wise men. The commission will then function much like similar bodies do in Europe—controlling costs by denying coverage for new technologies or patients at the end of life, or by limiting spending on certain treatments and thus creating longer waits.
  

They summarize:

ObamaCare's real cost-control plan boils down to this: First subsidize coverage so much that costs explode, raise taxes as much as possible to pay for it, and when that isn't enough hand power to an unelected committee to limit treatment and control prices by government order. This is what Democrats are voting for.

Actually, democrats are just voting to try to save their political behinds, in the hopes that their liberal puppeteers will turn out to re-elect them if they just take over the health care of this country.

A revolution is coming. If the democrats are stupid enough to defy the will of the people, and to violate the basic tenets of our legal process to cram through the takeover of our health care, there will be a backlash. Many states have already said they won't go along with it -- but the feds have the power, and they have the military to force the states into compliance.

Three decades ago, one or two states tried to take away the rights of some citizens to equal access to government services, and the federal government had to intervene to protect the rights of those citizens.

Today, it is likely that the federal government will use force against states who are trying to protect the rights of their citizens to associate with companies they wish to associate with, and to spend their money for their own health care in the way they see fit.

Obamacare will enslave us to insurance companies. It will enslave doctors to medical care. It will enrich the political class, kill our old and infirmed, and destroy the best health care in the world. Not only will we suffer, but the world will suffer as our companies, which are at the forefront of the fight for health in this world, are destroyed by marxists who know nothing about how the real world works, and have lived their lives by leeching off the success of others.

The destruction of civilization has begun. We have elected a majority who believes that money grows on trees, that the unproductive deserve the product of the hands of the productive, that the successful exist only to service the unsuccessful, and that they can get anything they want from the golden goose.

They have forgotten that a dead goose lays no eggs. Their brand of socialism will only work until they have taken all the money from those who have it. Then we will be done.

This is what happens when the object of an election is to "make history" rather than "find the best people to lead the country". We sure made history. Now we'll be stuck with the consequences.

Inadvertantly Correct Headline: Sacrifice Jobs for Obamacare

In a most inadvertantly correct Headline award:

"Pelosi: Lawmakers Should Sacrifice Jobs for Health Care"

Because it is certain that if we pass Obamacare, we will sacrifice a LOT of jobs in this country. Not just the democrats in congress who should be fired for their incompetence.

But for Pelosi and the democrats, it's all about them, not about what havoc they will wreak on the rest of us:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged her colleagues to back a major overhaul of U.S. health care even if it threatens their political careers, a call to arms that underscores the issue's massive role in this election year.

Lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public, Pelosi said in an interview being broadcast Sunday the ABC News program "This Week.""We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."

More like doing A JOB on the American people. But if we are lucky, they'll fail to pass this monstrosity, and still lose their jobs in November.

Bipartisans agree, Pelosi is an idiot.

At least, by her definition of bipartisan, which apparently has nothing to do with two parties working together. From the Hill:

"Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left their imprint."

The public option, for example, has been stripped from the bill because Republicans were so adamantly against it, she said.

Actually, the public option was never in Reid's Senate bill, because the 60 DEMOCRATS in the Senate didn't want it. The house has never removed a single thing from a bill because of the objection of republicans only -- there's no need, unless the republicans get democrats to join them in bipartisan DISAGREEMENT.

But for Pelosi, the mere fact that Republicans have said they hate the bill would make the bill "bipartisan". Of course, she lives in a fantasy world were people will LOVE health care once it is passed:

"When the public sees what is in this bill...when we show them what the priorities are and what it's been boiled down to, what it means to them sitting around their kitchen table rather than us sitting around a table at Blair House, the response will be positive," Pelosi said.

In other words, the problem is that the great communicator, having made 400+ speeches, simply hasn't done enough to let people know what is in the bill. Or more accurately, that the american people are just too stupid to know what is good for them. John McCain rightly denounces that belief:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on "Meet the Press" that Americans are much better informed about the healthcare plan and reiterated the GOP platform that the process should be started from scratch.

To show how deluded Pelosi is, here is what she claims the health bill is about:

Pelosi outlined the top priorities for the legislation: affordability for the middle class, accountability of insurance companies and accessibility for more people.

But the bill will raise health care spending, raise the cost of health care coverage for individuals in the middle class, and will require huge government subsidies for people to pay for their own care. It forces everybody to buy insurance, making insurers LESS accountable because they won't have to compete for business. After taxing people for all sorts of health care purchases, and for having too much insurance, accessability will be the least of our problems.

THere is bipartisan opposition in the house to this bill. There is widespread bipartisan public opposition to this bill. Polls show americans of all political persuasions want congress to stop the charade, and put together a bill that will actually help people get better health care.

ObamaCare in a nutshell

Obamacare is all about forcing people to pay more for insurance they don't need, so the government can tell everybody what health care they should get.

Nothing is better at illustrating this principle of Obamacare than Obama's own bizarre story of his ignorance over car insurance. From the Thursday Health Care Obama-Talk-Fest:

When I was young, just got out of college, I had to buy auto insurance. I had a beat-up old car. And I won’t name the name of the insurance company, but there was a company — let’s call it Acme Insurance in Illinois. And I was paying my premiums every month. After about six months I got rear-ended and I called up Acme and said, I’d like to see if I can get my car repaired, and they laughed at me over the phone because really this was set up not to actually provide insurance; what it was set up was to meet the legal requirements. But it really wasn’t serious insurance.

Now, it’s one thing if you’ve got an old beat-up car that you can’t get fixed. It’s another thing if your kid is sick, or you’ve got breast cancer.

Now, there's all sorts of lessons here. Like why was Obama paying monthly payments for insurance, instead of 6 month or yearly payments? Or why he would buy insurance that wasn't really insurance, or why he didn't know that the legal requirements would only be for liability coverage. Or that if someone hits your car, you are supposed to call THEIR insurance company.

But the real lesson is this. The guy bought what, by his own admission, was a "beat up old car". No doubt, if he had bought collision, his deductable would be higher than the value of the car. Probably he was lucky not to have collision insurance, since it would never pay off on his clunker.

But Obama's message was this: "Now, it’s one thing if you’ve got an old beat-up car that you can’t get fixed. It’s another thing if your kid is sick, or you’ve got breast cancer." In other words, he is saying that he was stupid not to have collision insurance that wouldn't really pay off, and that someone should have forced him to buy useless insurance, just like they forced him to buy liability insurance.

And likewise, Obamacare will force us to buy insurance we don't need, like coverage for your sick child when you don't have children, or coverage for breast reconstruction for men.

House operations are "A Mystery"

Remember how the Democrats promised that they would run the House with such transparency that nobody would ever be surprised by something in a bill anymore? 72 hours of public viewing before they voted on anything? Remember the promises?

Thursday, the House was taking up what should have been a fairly routine intelligence bill (routine except that it was months late). Well, it shows up on the house floor, all ready to vote on, but with nobody apparently having read it yet. And what do we find in the bill? A provision to criminalize the intelligence service.

As told by the washington posts castoffs, the Politico:

“It’s a mystery how that language got in there,” Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) said of the controversial intelligence bill provision backed by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). “I think there are a lot of issues about the drafting of the McDermott amendment.”

A Mystery? You send a bill through the committee, where there are public hearings, and a public vote on each item in the bill. When done, the committee holds a final vote, and the bill comes to the floor of the house.

On the floor of the house, members offer up amendments, each of which are read by the clerk, debated, and voted on. After all amendments are voted on, there is a final vote on the bill.

So how could any words in the bill be "a mystery"? How could the former ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee have no idea how a clause criminalizing interrogation made it into an intelligence bill?

The answer is simple -- Under democratic rule, the house no longer works as a democratic body. Instead, backroom deals, ignoring the rules, bills written in secret and voted on without any public hearing -- that's the norm. I'm sure Pelosi would skip the whole voting thing if she could figure out whether the media would go along with it.

Hopefully, the people are getting tired of the dictatorial, elitist leadership of the house and senate. We will have to suffer for a few more months, but come November, the people can have their congress back. Our brief dark night can end, and a new day dawn.

Sure, we'll still be stuck with an incompetent socialist President, but he's pretty much demonstrated that, apart from lying, he's not really committed to anything.

Pre-existing conditions in a nutshell

With all the talk about pre-existing conditions in health care, it's important to understand what exactly we are talking about.

There are actually two separate issues that are interchangeably discussed as "pre-existing conditions", and since they are very different, and have different solutions, it confuses a lot of people.

The first is an actual "pre-existing-condition". Meaning I have a chronic disease, for which there is a known cost of treatment. I then go to an insurance company, and ask to be insured. If they cover the condition I already have, and if my payments don't include the total cost of the known treatment for the chronic disease, the insurance company is being stupid. "I'll pay you $20 if you give me back $30" is not a viable business strategy.

Now, a lot of people want to be able to force insurance companies to cover such pre-existing conditions, because they don't think of insurance as insurance, but rather as a pre-paid medical debit card. Imagine though going to a car insurance company and asking for a policy for the car you just crashed. Or to State Farm to ask them for a homeowner's policy for your house that is underwater because of a flood?

Oh, sometimes people do this -- it's called insurance fraud, and we put people in jail for it. But for some reason, we want insurance companies to take less money than they KNOW it will cost to provide care. And the insurance companies are actually on board -- so long as we also force healthy people to pay the same insurance premiums. So under this new system, a person who the insurance company knows will cost $500,000 over the next 10 years pays $100,000, while 10 other people who are most certainly only going to cost $50,000 average also pay $100,000, and it all works out.

Except that the 10 people who don't need coverage are forced to get it, and are forced to pay way more than what that coverage is worth. We tax the healthy to treat the sick.

OK, the 2nd "pre-existing-condition" is not an actual illness, but rather the propensity for the need of treatment. Really, this is a "risk" issue. Maybe it's a genetic marker which indicates a greater risk of illness. Or you had one disease, which makes it likely you could get another. You had a heart attack, so you could have more heart attacks. You had a transplant, so now you are compromised and likely to get sick. You have high blood pressure, so it might lead to other problems.

In these cases, the insurance company doesn't have a known cost of putting you on their books, but they know that if they take 10 people like you, it will cost them say twice as much as 10 people who are NOT like you. In the real world of insurance, you and the other 9 like you would pay twice as much in premiums as the other 10, and you would still come out ahead if you got sick, because your cost of treatment would be spread across others with similar changes of illness.

Now, in one sense, the 1st case is just the logical end-point of the 2nd, where the "risk probability" is 100 percent. most risks probabilities don't come close to certainty, and how we handle risk pools is a fundamentally different problem than how we handle known costs.

Of course, on Thursday the democrats attacked the idea of having "risk pools" for medical insurance. I'm betting though that they would be the first to say that smokers should have to pay more for coverage than non-smokers. I'm betting that because it isn't a "probability", it is a pre-existing condition.

Meaning: Democrats have already put large taxes on tobacco, to cover the "increased risk of medical treatment" needed by smokers. The state offers "health insurance", and they collect taxes to pay for it, and they add taxes to things that they think will make the health care the state pays for cost more. Democrats are also pushing to tax candy and soda, because those two lead to higher medical costs.

But apparently, if an insurance company wants to charge a person more because that person is likely to cost more, they are being evil.

Decent explanation of risk pools.

From a National Review post:

If your car gets vandalized, it’s not your fault, but your insurance company may suspect you’re parking in a neighborhood prone to crime. You thus might see your premium rise upon renewal. The same logic applies to home insurance. Undoubtedly, this can mean that people in lower-income neighborhoods face relatively higher risk premiums than those in posh suburbs. Life insurance applications ask dozens of questions designed to assess how great a risk you pose. This means a missionary who travels to poor countries to help the destitute is likely to be identified as a risk taker and pay a penalty for living a life of good works. It’s not existentially fair, perhaps, but it’s not discrimination based on malice either.

The reference also has a description of how the private markets are handling the pre-existing condition problem, and how government could help without taking over and destroying the health care system.

Stupid Argument for Using Reconciliation

Of all the arguments one could make for using reconciliation for the health care bill, the Democrat argument is the stupidest, most self-supporting argument one could make.

Realise that reconciliation itself is not a "nuclear option", or even a bad thing. Reconciliation is a specific part of the rules of the senate, and is perfectly valid to use in it's intended application. So saying that "Republicans used reconciliation" is a pretty stupid argument -- it's like claiming "Republicans passed bills with 50 votes, so we shouldn't be allowed to filibuster judges" -- it's apples and oranges.

Reconciliation is for passing bills that implement financial aspects of an already-passed budget agreement. The intention is for the senate to not get bogged down debating and blocking implementation of taxes or spending changes that have already been through the process during the budget debate.

So reconciliation is often used as an omnibus legislation, to implement the budget.

But the health care bill isn't a budget item. Sure, parts of it include budget items, like new taxes, and restricting money for medicare. But things like changing the rules for medicare advantage, creating new regulations, and the like are certainly not budget monetary items.

And what is more clear is that reconciliation has never before been suggested as a way to amend existing non-reconciliation legislation, before that legislation has been completed. In this case, they have competing bills between the house and senate, for which they can't find a common bill that gets a majority in the house and passes filibuster in the senate. This is hardly the first time this has happened -- in fact, it happens all the time.

The normal procedure is to go back to the drawing board, and find some other way to get everybody on board. Instead, since the democrats can't amend the current bill with the support of 60 senators, they want to pass the bill with a PROMISE that they will amend it by using budget rules. There were Senators like Webb who said they voted on the bill to MOVE THE PROCESS FORWARD, "knowing" that if the house democrats screwed around with the bill, they could vote against it when it came back and still stop it. Now they are being told "too bad, we lied to get your vote, and now we don't need it anymore".

Anyway....

But that isn't the stupidest argument. The stupidest argument is the one many democrats are using, that "reconciliation is a horrible way to do this, and it's only a 'last resort' if we can't pass the bill any other way".

That argument is essentially saying : If we can get 60 votes, that's what we will get, and we will only pass the bill with fewer than 60 votes if we get fewer than 60 votes".

Which I hope you can now see is a stupid argument. It's like saying "We'll go to the restaurant you choose, so long as you choose the one I like, otherwise we'll go to the one I like." Or, calling a coin flip by saying "you can have heads, unless the coin comes up heads, and then I get heads".

Here is an actual example, Ben Nelson: "[reconciliation is] my least favorite way to do something. It’s only after everything else fails, when there’s obstruction going on,” Nelson said.

Well, a filibuster is obstruction. And failing to break a filibuster is "everything else failing". So his argument is "reconciliation is to use if someone tries to filibuster and we can't break the filibuster". If true, then no filibuster would ever work against the majority.

Obama blames SecDef Gates for shortchanging troops.

In Obama's widely panned Tuesday Night Speech, he made what appears to be a blatantly false claim:

Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.
That’s why, shortly after taking office, I approved a long-standing request for more troops.

Former Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld called Obama out on this lie, saying that if there is ANY evidence that the White House received requests during his time in office, they should make it public.

Obama, knowing he was caught in a lie, came up with a scheme -- Gibbs, his spokesperson, came out and agreed with a reporter's assumption that Obama was talking about requests made in 2008.

See, in 2008, the Sec. of Defense was Robert Gates. And today, he is still Defense Secretary, which means he reports to, and is under the control of Obama.

Of course, in reality the 2008 troop requests did work through the system, and as troops became available some were retasked to Afghanistan. But after the election, the incoming adminsitration put a hold on the troops, and took almost 3 months before finally releasing half of the request (hence Obama's "approved a long-standing request" is also misleading since they were long-standing because he asked them to be put on hold).

Now we've operated almost a year, and nothing more has been done; except that Obama forced his generals to HOLD their requests so he could claim there was no "request on his desk".

"I want to live forever" - Fame? No, Reid's Delusion of Obamacare

Senator Harry Reid, who couldn't craft a health care bill that solved a SINGLE ONE of the "problems" the health care bill is supposed to fix, has a much bigger target in mind -- immortality:

"Today we [decide] whether to even discuss one of the greatest issues of our generation," Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said shortly before the vote. "Whether this nation will finally guarantee its people the right to live free from fear of illness and death, which can be prevented by decent health care for all."

Obamacare/House version would reduce senior care

Last time, I chronicled how the Obamacare bill passed by Pelosi would raise health care cost by hundreds of billions of dollars -- contrary to the stated goal of lowering health care costs.

Today, from the Washington Post, we find that Obamacare also fails to protect people's existing insurance, another "promise" from the great President Obama, who breaks promises on a daily basis.

Specifically, the Post notes that Senior Citizens are a prime target of Pelosi and the Democrats, because Pelosi's Bill would reduce senior care:

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending -- one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's health-care system -- would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

Again, we could have known this fact before the House voted on the bill. In fact, Pelosi certainly knew this -- which is why she pushed for a rediculous schedule, making at least one member miss his own son's wedding so she could pass health care destruction in the dead of saturday night.

The report, requested by House Republicans, found that Medicare cuts contained in the health package approved by the House on Nov. 7 are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.

Not that Democrats want old people to just die or anything. No serious person would try to argue that a political party wants people to die. Oh wait -- that's exactly what the crazy elected Democrats DO argue. But Republicans aren't the ones cutting billions from old people's health care.

This new study also points out the tremendous increase in costs under this plan:

In the face of greatly increased demand for services, providers are likely to charge higher fees or take patients with better-paying private insurance over Medicaid recipients, "exacerbating existing access problems" in that program, according to the report from Richard S. Foster of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Oh well, it sucks to be an old person dependent on government-run health insurance when the Democrats control the government.