From Steve Chapman, via CfG:

[Barack Obama] says though the United States spends more per person on medical care than any other nation, "the quality of our care is often lower, and we aren't any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend substantially less than we do are actually living longer than we do."

One big reason our life expectancy lags is that Americans have an unusual tendency to perish in homicides or accidents. We are 12 times more likely than the Japanese to be murdered and nearly twice as likely to be killed in auto wrecks.

In their 2006 book, "The Business of Health," economists Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider set out to determine where the U.S. would rank in life span among developed nations if homicides and accidents are factored out. Their answer? First place.

There's your counterargument the next time someone brings up this point. Done and done.

From my column today:

But government health care would not even offer the luxury of bargaining. When you are sick, you are going to the hospital, and you are going now. You are going to wait, and wait, and wait, and then you will get rushed through by bureaucrats who will see you as more of a burden on their “system” than your illness is a burden on you.

We know for a fact that this will happen because it already happens. It happens in other countries that blundered by handing their health care industries to their governments (it is the Canadians who send their patients over here, not the other way around). And it happens right here in the U.S., most notably with the DMV, immigration offices and the post office – not so coincidentally, all of them government-run. To add doctor’s offices and hospitals to this list would be morally incomprehensible, yet again, so are many things that politicians do.

Read the rest here.

I can't embed this, but here's a link to some captivating analysis of Obama iconography.

From my column today:

A primary story of the health care debate has been the Blue Dog Democrats’ resistance to Barack Obama’s takeover of American health care. As a result of this show being put on by the Blue Dogs for their constituents, just about every media outlet has labeled the group and its 52 congressional members as “fiscally conservative.”

A quick note to the journalism majors who are penning such words: Not everyone slightly to the right of the far left is “conservative.”

You see, to the right of the far left, one might find an array of categories – from “leftist” to “moderate” – that provide a mighty buffer before a consequential label such as “conservative” can be used. And allow me to assure you, the Blue Dogs have far from traversed this ideological buffer.

Read the rest here.

From my column today:

Let’s get this straight. A very few months ago, Obama predicted that the SCS would save the country by causing the unemployment rate to peak at 8 percent, while petrifying Americans (in a hopeful way, of course) by predicting that failure to pass the SCS would cause the ultimate doom: A 9 percent unemployment rate, lasting a longer time. Yet now, when the economy has become so poor that 9 percent is a goal we aspire to achieve, Obama is declaring victory? Talk about “Mission Accomplished” on steroids.

Read the rest here.

This is something else. Is there a wedding registry?

I don't really care much for this whole situation with the posters, but I had to share the pathetic desperation of the Washington Post to somehow link the posters to racism. I can't remember seeing a more insincere way to connect two points. What an embarrassment.

With the mild resistance that the Blue Dog Democrats are putting up to the Democratic leadership's health care bill, just about every media outlet has labeled the group and its members "fiscally conservative."

A quick tip for the journalism majors who are penning such words: not everyone slightly to the right of the far left is "conservative." To the right of the far left you will find an array of categories, such as leftist/liberal, left-leaning, moderate, and only then do things start tilting toward conservatism.

So please, refrain from placing the Blue Dogs, who regularly vote to the left of even liberal Republicans and for such decidedly fiscally unconservative horrors such as the gargantuan "stimulus" package, anywhere other than to the left of moderation.

Dear journalists, you might not realize it, but when anyone to the right of the far left is called "conservative," then actual conservatives suddenly sound like far right extremists, and average leftists appear to be moderates. Come to think about it, actually, you most likely realize this fact quite fully.

John Stossel does an excellent job introducing viewers to government-run health care, in the first video below. About a fourth of the way into it, he questions Obama's claim that the administration isn't seeking to run health care beyond providing a public option. Since his segment aired, however, new video has come out to supplement the evidence discrediting the administration's claims. I've posted this addendum as the second video below.

From my column today:

On Friday, New Hampshire celebrated the 200^th birthday of its famous motto, “Live Free Or Die.” Its words were first penned by General John Stark, who had led Americans to victory at the Battle of Bennington in 1777. The words are a reflection of the America that, today, we are merely taught about in history books.

...

There was, indeed, a time when “Live Free Or Die” meant every word for most Americans. But no longer are such black and white statements of principled certainty welcome in a land increasingly embracing mushy moral ambiguity in the name of the “common good.” Individual freedoms and personal responsibility are quickly becoming a thing of the past in a country that allows its politicians to coerce adults to wear seatbelts and to forbid smoking at a private bar owner’s invitation.

Read the rest here.

Wow:

A new poll shows former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) has closed a 20-point gap on Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) in a matter of just two and a half months, and that the two are virtually tied.

The Quinnipiac poll, released Wednesday, shows Specter leading Toomey 45-44 in a virtual tie. In early May, shortly after Specter's party switch, he led Toomey 53-33.

Nearly half - 49 percent - of voters say Specter doesn't deserve reelection, while 40 percent say he does. Independent voters have shifted to Toomey's side by a 46-42 margin.

(via CfG)

From my column today:

[W]hen the federal government attempts to erase all differences between the states through massive federal taxes and spending, Americans’ ability to choose among 50 laboratories becomes decreasingly feasible. What’s the point of moving between states if you will face the same exact taxes and policies in each?

And this is what the federal government is doing. It is eliminating our choices within the U.S. by giving us one giant central government that we cannot escape. We’ve already established that foreign countries are out of the question. So when America descends to their level, where will we go?

Read the rest here.

He most certainly appears to be in this video. It starts at the 51-second mark, when he's asked to come out one the "truth" of 9/11. His answer? "Because I can't handle the controversy." Oh, and he's got too many things to do.

Libertarians are much better people who deserve much better representation. What a shame, and how discrediting to libertarian ideals, that Americans are introduced to these ideals through someone with apparently conspiratorial views.

(via Hot Air)

The first question I have when I see this is, which country will we (and the Canadians) have to go to for medical treatment after the U.S. goes the way of Canada?

Go here for the full version (pdf).

From my column today:

A quick scan of political history since the November elections can only reveal a regrettable pattern – if not a systematic operation – of Democratic leadership consistently demonizing opposition far beyond the call of political necessity.

Under the rule of the Czar of Czars (whose mesmerizing 53 percent victory, he reminds us often, evidently renders him infallible), the dissent that was once the Democrats’ archetypal illustration of patriotism is now nothing more than the first leap toward treason itself.

Read the rest here.

This woman had every indication of a horrible medical situation, and she had to wait four months and six months to see specialists in Canada, by which time she would have been at least blind, and maybe dead. Compared to what I've heard about Canada, four and six months actually sound like a success story.

In the end, she paid for both Canadian health care (through taxes) and American health care, but couldn't even use the first because it would have killed her.

From my column today:

But virtually nothing is free. Someone is always paying, and more often than not, it is you. If you demanded that the Jackson tickets be given out for free, you are paying for it by reducing your chances of attendance to one in 183. If you supported the federal government’s decision to spend $800 billion on “free” “stimulus” goodies, you will have to pay for it in higher taxes and lower income for the rest of your life. If you support “free” health care, you will have to pay for it in higher taxes, longer lines, lower quality and six-month waiting periods to see doctors.

Read the rest here.