According to a story by WGRZ, from January 2006 to May 2009, an unemployed and uninsured man in Buffalo, NY took over 600 ambulance rides to the hospital. Guess how much it cost him: nothing. Guess how much it cost the taxpayers of New York: well, Medicaid doled out $118,158. In addition, the ambulance company had to eat another $250,000. But those numbers could have been much worse. The man claims he make at least another thousand requests for transportation that weren't fulfilled. Good grief.

The problem with this situation, as I see it, is two-fold. The most obvious, of course, is the fact that this guy uses an ambulance as a taxi cab at the expense of others. But you also have to consider that the ambulance company probably has to raise the costs of their services just to recoup money they lose to people like this guy. It's no wonder health coverage is so expensive. Between frivolous law suits and moochers off the system, hospitals and emergency services have to find a way to continue operating.

If Obamacare is passed this Fall, you can bet that scenarios like this one will occur by the millions as people cash in on "free" health care. God save us all.

This week the US House of Representatives stands poised to vote on a health care reform bill that will essentially socialize our health care system. At the risk of understatement, this is a very important week in our nation's history.

No one argues that America's $2.4 trillion health care system doesn't need to be reformed, but socializing America's health care system is a solution that will most certainly produce horrible results. The vision of a quality, efficient, and affordable single-payer public health care plan is nothing but a smokescreen for massive, centralized government control. Such a system, as I have oft repeated, does not work. I don't want a system where a committee, rather than my doctor, makes life and death decisions concerning drugs and treatment. I don't want a system where recipients are treated as supplicants, where you have no choice, where you must stand in line and be grateful for what you get. Like all government-run services, a government-run system will be wasteful and consume an inordinate percentage of wealth while delivering a lower quality of care. Who wants a hospital that is operated like your local BMV? And who wants their health care to be rationed by a Washington bureaucrat? Such bureaucrats want nothing more than to reduce you to a mere beggar, lining up in the ally for scraps, relying on them for even the most basic of human needs.

Look at what is already happening in Massachusetts, where their socialized health care plan has not only caused a $9 billion gap in the state budget, it has also led to rationing of care including one in five people who have been turned away by a doctor’s office or clinic. Socialized health care destroys wealth and lowers the quality of care. It has failed everywhere it has been attempted. Yet the liberal remains unalterably committed to it, for ultimately it is the holy grail of government control, for if you can control the most basic of human needs (health), you can completely control the human. As Mark Levin puts it:

Once the individual is entrapped, the Statist controls his fate. The individual will be seduced by the notion that he is receiving a benefit from the state when in reality the government is merely rationing benefits. The individual is tethered to the state, literally and utterly reliant on it for his health and survival. Not only does the government have an ownership interest in private property, but it also has one in the physical individual.

Socialized health care will spell the doom of this country. Federal entitlements have already set our trajectory towards complete national bankruptcy. Socialized health care will finish the job. The unfunded obligation to Medicare alone is estimated to be more than $30 trillion. Together with Social Security and Medicaid, these entitlements are projected to cause significant problems for the US economy. The CBO projections are staggering. They warn us that if these entitlement programs are left unchanged that by 2082 the tax rates for the lower, middle, and upper classes will reach 25%, 63%, and 88% respectively. The CBO concludes that "such tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity and would create serious problems with tax avoidance and tax evasion. Revenues will fall significantly short of the amount needed to finance the growth of spending; therefore, tax rates at such levels would probably not be economically feasible." In other words, we are presently headed toward disaster within one generation's time. If we go the route of single-payer socialized health care, we will accelerate and ensure the complete and catastrophic meltdown of the American economy and way of life.

It's not as though I, as a conservative, don't care about the health and well-being of American citizens. On the contrary, it is because of my love for this country that I will not stop opposing such disastrous legislation. Like the New Deal and Great Society programs before it, the promise of socialized health care is a pipe dream used for political purposes, one that caters to the ignorance of the entitlement-minded and will ultimately enslave us all to a lifetime of servitude.

But there is another way. We don't have to hand everything over to the Federal government (or, put another way, let the Federal government seize everything from us). Is it unreasonable for Americans to expect reform that gives families control of their own health care, provides greater tax relief, follows basic market principles of competition, and leaves the decision-making power to the States and not the Federal government? For the power-hungry Washington bureaucrat, yes, it is unreasonable for you to expect these things, for they run counter to their belief that they know better than you what is best for you and it threatens their control over your life. But there has to be another way than socializing the system. And the future of this country, literally, hangs in the balance.

Click here to email your elected officials and tell them you oppose this disastrous legislation.

The American Spectator
July 24, 2009
By Ben Stein
We've Figured Him Out

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?

Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.

These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.

There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.

This delicious little diagram shows you just how complicated and convoluted the Democrats' health care reform proposal is. This chart was created by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Republican staff of the Joint Economic Committee to illustrate the organization of the Democratic health care plan. Scary.

Oh, and by the way, the health care legislation would deny health care to the elderly and force taxpayers to fund abortions. Lovely.

Chart source here.

Yes, it is vacation time. I am taking a much-needed break from the things I normally spend my time doing...including blogging. But don't worry, I shall return shortly. Bookmark me and check back regularly, or simply subscribe via ATOM or RSS.

I am maintaining a running list of reasons why I do not support Barack Obama. This list will be updated on a regular basis, and it is a free resource that I encourage you to share with others. You can access the list from the permanent banner I have placed at the top of every page on the blog.

If you have an addition or correction to suggest, please use the email form on the Contact page. If you have a comment, or would like to discuss this list in any way, feel free to comment on this post.

Labels: politics

These days there seems to be a trend among some contemporary evangelicals to favor socialism over capitalism. After all, socialism is all about equality and justice, and capitalism is all about wealth and greed, right? These evangelicals, influenced one way or another by crusty old arguments by liberal Christian socialists from the beginning of the 20th century, love to cite Scripture as support for their argument. But I would like to argue for capitalism from a Christian perspective. Below you will find my ramblings on the matter, and I invite you to share what you think after reading them.

Let us begin by examining a Scripture passage from 2 Corinthians concerning the collection for the poor (8:13-15). Paul writes:

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.

Does this serve as ample support for socialism from a Christian perspective? Not necessarily. Socialism seeks to create equality and welfare through government intervention in every aspect of human life. But Paul is teaching the Corinthian Christians that they are responsible to care for one one another individually in love. There is a vast difference between the two. The early Christians sought to provide for the necessities of those who could not do so for themselves with the expectation that they would attempt to work and provide what they could. Charity without such expectations, or even worse, governmental redistribution of wealth, leads to envy, apathy, and laziness.

Capitalism, on the other hand, creates an environment of competition that allows freedom and motivation for individuals to be the best they can be. The potential to generate wealth means the potential to improve the quality of life and the opportunity to assist others. Wealth freely acquired is wealth that can be freely shared. Even the most selfish and greedy billionaire tycoon under capitalism inadvertently improves the quality of life of many, for it is his successful business that creates more jobs and opportunities for others, thus it is in everyone's best interest that his enterprise succeed. That way more people can provide for their families, their churches, and give more to charitable purposes.

This same objective is not accomplished through socialism and wealth redistribution. There is a difference between when the reallocation of funds is decided by Washington bureaucrats instead of the individuals generating them. In the church, spending is determined by individuals who love Jesus and their fellow man. They freely give out of their own resources that they have acquired through hard work in the free marketplace to the church in the good faith that it will be used in accordance with their own value system and worldview. If the church chooses to be corrupt or use its money for something incompatible with the giver's value system, the giver can choose to give their money to another church or organization.

But under a socialistic system, money is taken through taxation and used for every purpose under the sun. Spending decisions are made according to the special interests and political self-survival of the bureaucrat, not according to the Great Commandment. Federal spending is almost always wasteful and ineffective, and the people have no option to withhold funds in protest to how they are spent. While democracy provides the voting populace a check against how money is spent through elections, it does little for the Christian whose tax monies are being used to fund things they did not vote for. For example, I may choose to vote for pro-life candidates for Congress, and they may even be elected and vote in accordance with my value system. But what happens when the majority in Congress is pro-choice? The IRS still taxes me, and the ruling majority deems it appropriate to use my money to fund abortions. Multiply this scenario by the trillions and you have typical federal spending.

The social experiments in America have done little to truly enhance the lives of people. The New Deal extended the Great Depression by almost a decade and set America on the socialistic trajectory it is on now. The Great Society, the War on Poverty, and every other social initiative, while portrayed as a means to a Utopian end, have not ended poverty or ultimately improved lives, but rather have imprisoned millions in government dependency and threaten to completely bankrupt the country altogether. This is not what our founding Fathers had in mind. They knew that an open market would provide the maximum benefit as opposed to using the government to enact their own vision of social justice.

Consider the words of FDR's treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., who wrote in his private diary that "we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work... We have never made good on our promises... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started...and an enormous debt to boot!" (Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths, 15) FDR tried socialism and it failed. That is because Government cannot add value to the economy. It simply takes money from one group through taxation and gives it to another. This does not create wealth or prosperity, just debt, deficits, inflation, and higher taxes.

The Bible never describes God's plan for mankind as the equal redistribution of wealth among all people through a centralized government. The New Testament teaches that Christians should live peacefully despite whatever form their secular governments may take and give generously to those in need. The Old Testament teaches that the Israelite's land ultimately belonged to God, and while they were required to pay a tithe, be generous with the poor, and to refrain from profiting from their misfortune, the children of Israel were allowed to honestly earn whatever they could. God never commanded His people to redistribute their own personal wealth, with only a few exceptions.

On a more philosophical note, how socialism and capitalism view the individual has relevance to the Christian. Democracy, coupled with capitalism, extends the sphere of individual freedom and attaches all possible value to each man and woman. Socialism reduces the individual person to a number. In Christianity, there is no Jew, Greek, or Gentile. It does not operate according to class, race, color, or gender. Yet these are all the socialist sees. People are not individuals, but rather groups. Capitalism and the free market see no such thing. As Mark Levin puts it in Liberty and Tyrrany (p.62):

(The free market) discriminates against no race, religion, or gender. The truck driver does not know the skin color of the individuals who produce the diesel fuel for his vehicle; the cook does not know the religion of the dairy farmers who supply milk to his resturant; and the airline passenger does not know the gender of the factory worker who manufactures the commercial aircraft that transports him--nor do they care.

While the individuals who make up the market may have their own particular biases, the market as a system itself does not. Socialism, on the other hand, operates according to classes by default. The individual has no value compared to the class. This is anti-Trinitarian and thus anti-Christian. Social Trinitarianism affirms the one in the context of the many. Socialism dissolves the one among the many, essentially annihilating the individual.

Capitalism is not perfect. That is because it is comprised of imperfect people. Like all good things, it can be perverted. Greed and corruption do exist, but as I have stated above, even the evils of a few can benefit the many. The greater good of capitalism's benefits overwhelms its potential for evil, whereas the impossible Utopian vision of socialism ultimately benefits no one. The rich have less, and thus have less to give. The middle and lower classes become irrevocably dependent upon, and thus wards of, the State. Personal initiative, accountability, and responsibility are lost and the human spirit is destroyed.

The American civil society, comprised of churches, charities, and philanthropic institutions that help those in need, is the greatest and most generous in the world. But it is the State, not rugged individualism, that destroys civil society and societal compassion. When the government takes over the social roles of the civil society, social justice never prevails, despite the promises of politicians. Don't agree? Just take a look at the civil societies of every socialist European nation.

The New Testament does contain examples of the church pulling together its resources to meet the needs of the down and out. The church should operate in like fashion today. But these passages are hardly justification for embracing socialism in America. The works of charity and meeting the needs of the poor belong to the church. The failed social experiments of Europe and now America can never do the work of the church at her best.

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." ~Benjamin Franklin

Labels: politics

With employers in the U.S. cutting 467,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate rising to 9.5 percent, and hourly earnings stagnating, many in America are really starting to wonder where the stimulus to the economy is.

Wasn't the $787 billion stimulus plan supposed to create millions of new jobs? Just 10 days before taking office, didn't Obama predict that unemployment would remain at 8 percent or below through this year if it won congressional approval? And even if there is an economic recovery once all the stimulus money is finally spent, will the economy be able to survive our country's ever mounting debt and its accompanying inflation, interest rates, and tax hikes?

On another level, is anyone surprised? Did we seriously expect to see real stimulus from spending money on things like children's wooden arrow makers, beer ingredients, a walking tour of Boydton, VA, the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, urban canal inspection, a honey bee factory, a parking garage, a tattoo removal violence outreach program, cricket control, beaver management, a Center for Grape Genetics, a school sidewalk, the promotion of astronomy, "smoking cessation activities," toilet repair, or, ironically enough, pig odor research?

Now they're saying that we might need a second stimulus? Holy cow.

Folks, I hope you enjoy Independence Day this weekend while you can, because slowly but surely we are losing that which we have celebrated and been defined by for 233 years.

Labels: politics

It looks like the White House press corps might actually be starting to ask some tough questions. Even though the mainstream media in America is sompletely in the tank for Obama -- with the lone exception of Fox News, thank God -- giving him free pass after free pass and turning a blind eye to the real issues and what is really taking place, even they have a limited tolerance for state control of the press.

Today in his daily briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had to field tough questions concerning the White House's method for screening and preselecting questions for Obama's so-called 'town hall' session on socialist health care reform. Clearly irritated, veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas bluntly remarked:

The point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some control but not this control. I mean I'm amazed, I'm amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and have controlled...

The video of Gibbs unable to either answer or dodge the questions is below:



So much for Obama's campaign pledge for openness and transparency. We're learning more and more often that there is a gulf that separates what this White House says and what it actually does.

Update (7.2.09): Here is more of what Helen Thomas had to say. She's been covering the white house since JFK, and she has never seen anything like this before.

Labels: politics