Southern Colorado Patriots Club: Blog

Joe C. sent me this video (below) as a means of quickly running through issues in the Senate version of the health care bill that was initially offered last July.  This is an earlier version than the one that passed the vote on Christmas Eve (a mere month ago), but you can check the claims of the video below with that of the actual text of the bill here (PDF file).  The page numbers and lines mentioned in the video correspond with that PDF file.


The updated (current) version of the Senate bill is HR 3590 and can be found in text format here.  The problem with connecting the video to this current version is that we don't have the same page and line numbers in this new bill as those mentioned in the video.  But if you search the obsolete PDF version, you can find section heading numbers, then use your browser to search to those numbers (press CTRL-F to get on-page search ability, for the non-geeks) and compare the current with obsolete versions (geeky enough?).  Plenty of work, but I noticed some of this garbage indeed remains within the current version of the bill.

Do some research, come to your own conclusions, and share what you find with others.  After all, according to President Obama's recent state of the union address, American citizens are opposed to this bill because he failed to properly inform us of the bill's true contents:

Still, this is a complex issue. And the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people. And I know that with all the lobbying and horse-trading, this process left most Americans wondering, "What's in it for me?"

...

As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we've proposed. There's a reason why many doctors, nurses, and health care experts who know our system best consider this approach a vast improvement over the status quo.

But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.

Hey, Mr. President--I think I've found some better approaches.  In fact, I wrote about them here months ago.

Labels: H.R. 3200, H.R. 3590, health care, health insurance, Obama, president, Senate, state of the union

I don't understand our President's recent call for bipartisanship--in either the state of the union address or today as directed to members of Congress (per this Reuters article).  He doesn't need bipartisanship, since the Democrats have a majority in both the House and Senate--they can do whatever they want to do.

Or perhaps this is about the recent lost seat in Massachusetts?  Could be.  Perhaps calls for bipartisanship is really a lamenting the loss of a sealed super-majority in Congress?  It's starting to sound like it.  Whining about a possible filibuster attempt over ram-through legislation?  Too bad--that's politics.

Let's take a look at where this problem really lies--within the divided Democratic side of the aisle.  With the exception of votes requiring a super-majority (few exist), the Democrats have free reign over whatever comes to the floor.  They can pass or deny anything!  Why the whining about such a position?  They need absolutely no bipartisanship whatsoever to accomplish their every whim.

And what does it really mean to have "bipartisanship" in the way the President is requesting now?  I don't recall bipartisanship being so sought only a month ago when the Senate rammed through their astoundingly-irresponsible Health Care proposal on Christmas Eve (without even reading it, I might add).  No bipartisanship desired or needed.

I can only interpret these calls for bipartisanship as completely disingenuous.  It's like the Broncos blaming the Raiders for their loss last December!  Like football, if the President wants to get his way in this contest, he'd better get his own team in order.  Maybe that's too obvious?

Labels: bipartisanship, Congress, democrats, Massachusetts, president

Did you see the President's state of the union speech last night?  If not, you can read it here, courtesy of ABC News.

I'm deeply disturbed that what appears to be so popular in this great nation is the forcible taking from some to give to others.  Is that ethical?  So much of the President's speech last night involved discussion of these sorts of things.

To be frank, if you believe programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are anything other than socialism, how would you classify them?  The fact is I can count on putting much more into Social Security than I can ever hope to recover later, and the Social Security administration admits as much in this PDF document.

We're getting ever closer to the terms required within the Communist Manifesto, as seen in the Wikipedia article on this subject.  How many of these things have we already established within our society, even if through well-meaning programs and taxation?  Consider the ten conditions required in moving from capitalism to communism below (quoted from the Wikipedia article:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

Redistribute wealth.  More programs, more spending, more debt.  "Jobs" provided through something done by the state, ultimately funded by the citizens.  Is this the America you want?  Is this how you'd spend your own money?

The Senate just proposed (and passed) lifting the national debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, per this Reuters article.  That's nearly 100% of our national GDP!  If I had a full year's worth of my income in unsecured debt, I'd consider myself in great financial peril, and perhaps bankrupt.  How does adding to this figure help me recover?  How is my personal situation different than our national situation?

Am I just being negative?  Am I missing some reason for optimism?  Feel free to let me know--you can comment on blog posts, or drop me an email (email addresses found on our Contact page).

Labels: communist manifesto, medicaid, medicare, national debt, president, social security, state of the union, wealth redistribution