Quotations Between September 16-September 24, 2009
To Accompany the September 15, 2009 edition of Tidbits
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090924.htm  

Bob Jensen

Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

Education is what you get when you read the fine print.
Experience is what you get when you don't....
...
Pete Seeger as quoted by Mark Shapiro below.

Charter Schools - A Choice but not Necessarily a Great Choice.
The Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University recently released a report (executive summary, full report) that compares educational outcomes for charter schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia with their corresponding traditional public schools. The bottom line from this study is that charter schools are very much a mixed bag. They are not in any sense a panacea. Some charters are better than other charters, and some charters are better than their corresponding traditional public schools. But, many charters are worse than traditional public schools. Parents who are considering sending their children to a charter school need to investigate the educational outcomes for the particular charter schools they may be considering; and, they need to follow their children's progress carefully. If they don't they may find that their children are worse off than they were in traditional public schools.
Mark Shapiro, The Irascible Professor, September 20, 2009 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-09-20-09.htm

As can be seen in Figure 16 above, the results for reading are fairly dispersed. Colorado (Denver) and Missouri show equal or better than average performance on NAEP and positive charter school effects.16 Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois (Chicago), Louisiana and North Carolina all score lower than the NAEP average but still have positive charter growth. Less favorable results are apparent in Arizona, the District of Columbia and New Mexico as their NAEP scores are less than the national average and their charter school effect is negative. In Florida, Minnesota, Ohio and Texas charters also have negative charter effects but their NAEP scores beat the national average. The overall array of results suggests that charters may have better impacts if they operate in states with low overall performance, and is worthy of further study.
Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), Stanford University, June 2009, Page 48 ---
http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/MULTIPLE_CHOICE_CREDO.pdf

Throwing Money at Schools Does Not Always Lead to Desired Improvement
Washington Schools Are Not Getting Much Bang for the Buck
Are many of the graduation diplomas fraudulent?

Only 14 percent of Washington's fourth-graders score at or above proficiency in the reading and math portions of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. Their national rank of 51 makes them the nation's worst. Eighth-graders are even further behind with only 12 percent scoring at or above proficiency in reading and 8 percent in math and again the worst performance in the nation. One shouldn't be surprised by Washington student performance on college admissions tests. They have an average composite SAT score of 925 and ACT score of 19.1, compared to the national average respectively of 1017 and 21.1. In terms of national ranking, their SAT and ACT rankings are identical to their fourth- and eighth-grade rankings -- dead last.
Walter E. Williams, Townhall, September 16, 2009 --- http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/09/16/education

Washington's political and education establishment might excuse these outcomes by arguing that because most students are black, the schools are underfunded and overcrowded. Let's look at such a claim. During the 2006-07 academic year, expenditures per pupil averaged $13,848 compared to a national average of $9,389. That made Washington's per pupil expenditures the third highest in the nation coming in behind New Jersey ($14,998) and New York ($14,747). Washington's teacher-student ratio is 13.9 compared with the national average of 15.3 students per teacher, ranking 18th in the nation. What about teacher salaries? Washington's teachers are the highest paid in the nation, having an average annual salary of $61,195 compared with the nation's average $46,593. Despite the academic performance of Washington's students, they have a graduation rate of 61 percent compared to the national average of 70 percent. That suggests the issuance of fraudulent high school diplomas.

Jensen Comment
What seems to perform better for ghetto schools is more intense, longer-hour schools that keep children away from their sorry home environments for longer periods of time during all 12 months of the year. Neither public nor charter schools are answering this call to the extent that’s really needed.

Among many other things, the Lehman bankruptcy symbolized the breakdown of an overly complex, fragmented, opaque, unwieldy and ungovernable financial system. But while it's easy to think that these issues are systemic and beyond our individual control, perhaps there are steps that each one of us can take, in our own small way, to prevent the next Lehman from occurring?
Ron Ashkenas, How Can You Help Prevent the Next Lehman," Harvard Business Publishing, September 14, 2009 --- Click Here  http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/09/how_you_can_help_prevent_the_n.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE

"The level of unemployment is unacceptably high. And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years." Who do you suppose said that? A Republican political operative? A Fox News political analyst? One of those several hundred thousand Tea Partiers who assembled in Washington on Sept. 12? No, it was Lawrence Summers, the director of Barack Obama's National Economic Council and, by common consent, one of the world's leading economists .
Michael Barone, "Job-Killing Policies Could Doom Democrat Hopes," Townhall, September 17, 2009 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelBarone/2009/09/17/job-killing_policies_could_doom_democrat_hopes 

Race-Based Punishment in Tucson is On a Quota System
With this comes the creation of an "Equity Team" that will ... get this ... oversee the plan to ensure "a commitment to social justice for all students." OK ... now what does this look like to you? I'm thinking that the Tucson school district will not be allowed to discipline minority students except in accordance with strict quotas. If 60% of the students are black and Hispanic, then only 60% of disciplinary actions can be taken against black and Hispanic students. The other 40% of disciplinary actions must be taken against whites ... regardless of who is committing the infractions.
Neil Boortz, "RACE-BASED PUNISHMENT IN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS," September 22, 2009 --- 
http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2009/09/racebased-punishment-in-govern.html

If I'm going down, I'm taking all of you with me.
Impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to his former political cronies --- http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/the_blago_code.html
Jensen Comment
In Chicago that statement may bring him a dead fish wrapped in newspaper. Blago's wife is the daughter of powerful Chicago Alderman Richard Mell

I rarely watch Bill O'Reilly, but I sometimes watch Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthew more often to renew my evidence bias and Obama cheerleading at MSNBC. It's interesting to see why Olbermann is furiously at war with O'Reilly.
Note the graphs at
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/09/18/oreilly-vs-olbermann-through-thursday-september-17/27713

In 2005, Citibank and ACORN Housing Corporation -- which received tens of millions of tax dollars under the Bush administration alone -- began recruiting Mexican illegal aliens for a lucrative program offering loans with below-market interest rates, down-payment assistance and no mortgage insurance requirements. Instead of the Social Security numbers required of law-abiding citizens, the program allows illegal alien applicants to supply loosely monitored tax identification numbers issued by the IRS . . . And ACORN advisory council member Eric Eve of Citigroup is a champion of the ACORN/Citibank illegal alien loan program that openly undermines immigration laws and integrity in banking. The truth is more sordid than any fictional scenarios caught on tape: ACORN is a corrupt enterprise.
Michelle Malkin, "ACORN's Illegal Alien Home Loan Racket," Frontpage, September 18, 2009 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/09/18/acorns_illegal_alien_home_loan_racket

ACORN could open Pandora's box
In the wake of Fox News reporting on the unfolding ACORN scandal, ACORN is now threatening to sue the network. Now that Fox is actually breaking news on this story by showing new videos, ACORN might just do it. Fox News should pray that ACORN does sue, because it would blow the doors off this story, possibly destroying ACORN and erupting into a political scandal in Washington.
Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski, Townhall, September 21, 2009 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/KenBlackwell/2009/09/21/acorn_could_open_pandoras_box
 

If you knocked your brother down, would you urinate in his mouth? . . . The question was posed as part of creative writing assignment to a class of about 12 or 13 seniors. Robertson said the question was designed to help motivate students to improve their writing, but he said the teacher lacked good judgment in assigning the question . . . Administrators found out about the question after a student approached another teacher for help with the assignment. That teacher told the school principal about it. School officials said the assignment didn't have to do with a book the students were reading. The district said she's a good teacher with a track record of motivating her students.
Writing assignment given by New Hampshire teacher, WMUR Channel 9 in Manchester, September 18, 2009 --- http://www.wmur.com/education/20990241/detail.html

Israel has no future
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a lie Friday, raising the stakes against Israel just as world powers try to decide how to deal with the nuclear ambitions of an Iran in political turmoil. "The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false ... It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim," he told worshippers at Tehran University at the end of an annual anti-Israel "Qods (Jerusalem) Day" rally.
Parisa Hafezi and Firouz Sedarat, "Ahmadinejad says Holocaust a lie, Israel has no future," Reuters, September 18, 2009 --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090918/wl_nm/us_iran_10

Taliban Leader Said to Warn U.S. on War
“We would like to point out that we fought against the British invaders for 80 years from 1839 to 1919 and ultimately got independence by defeating” Britain, the statement attributed to Mullah Omar said. “Today we have strong determination, military training and effective weapons,” the message said. “Still more, we have preparedness for a long war, and the regional situation is in our favor. Therefore, we will continue to wage jihad until we gain independence and force the invaders to pull out.” The statement’s authenticity could not be verified, but it was posted on a Web site the Taliban frequently uses. Mullah Omar is believed to be in hiding in Pakistan, but his location has not been verified in years.
The New York Times, September 19, 2009 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/world/asia/20afghan.html?_r=1&hpw

Breaking the Bank Frontline Video
In Breaking the Bank, FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Inside the Meltdown, Bush’s War) draws on a rare combination of high-profile interviews with key players Ken Lewis and former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain to reveal the story of two banks at the heart of the financial crisis, the rocky merger, and the government’s new role in taking over — some call it “nationalizing” — the American banking system.
Simoleon Sense, September 18, 2009 --- http://www.simoleonsense.com/video-frontline-breaking-the-bank/
Bob Jensen's threads on the banking bailout --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

In addition to the tens of millions of pork wasted on the Murtha Airport to nowhere comes the
$50-Million in Pork Created 'Paper Institute' at Indiana U. of Pa., Report Says
Rep. John P. Murtha, a powerful Pennsylvania congressman renowned for his prowess in bringing home pork-barrel spending to his district, has steered $50-million in earmarked, noncompetitive grants to a homeland-security institute at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and there's little to show for it, The Washington Post reported today. A former director of the John P. Murtha Institute for Homeland Security called it a "paper institute" with no clear mission, the Post reported. The university's president, Tony Atwater, said leadership changes at the institute "may have contributed to deferred and limited productivity in certain areas," but he said the university was proud of its federally financed research projects.
Chronicle of Higher Education, September 21, 2009 --- Click Here

Derivatives still pose huge risk, says BIS
The global market for derivatives rebounded to $426 trillion in the second quarter as risk appetite returned, but the system remains unstable and prone to crises, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The BIS said in its quarterly report that total turnover of derivatives rose 16pc, mostly due to a surge in futures and options contracts on three-month interest rates. Stephen Cecchetti, the bank's chief economist, said over-the-counter markets for derivatives are still opaque and pose "major systemic risks" for the financial system. The danger is that regulators will again fail to see that big institutions have taken far more exposure than they can handle in shock conditions, repeating the errors that allowed the giant US insurer AIG to write nearly "half a trillion dollars" of unhedged insurance through credit default swaps. The misjudgement was to think the banks and insurers were safe because their "net" exposure was modest. That proved to be an illusion. "The crisis has cast doubt on the apparent safety of firms that have small net exposures associated with large positions," Mr Cecchetti wrote. "As major market-makers suffered severe credit losses, their access to funding declined much faster than nearly anyone expected. When that happened, it was gross exposure that mattered. "The use of derivatives by hedge funds and the like can create large, hidden exposures," he added, citing the discovery that firms in Brazil, Korea and Mexico held huge foreign exchange contracts in late-2008.
London Telegraph, September 13, 2009 --- Click Here  
Bob Jensen’s tutorials (including videos) on accounting for derivatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm
Bob Jensen's timeline for derivatives frauds --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds




"ACORN Watch: A "Sting"-ing Indictment of Media Hypocrisy," by Michelle Milken, Townhall, September 16, 2009 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/09/16/acorn_watch_a_sting-ing_indictment_of_media_hypocrisy

Undercover journalism is only acceptable when it fits a liberal agenda. That is the message from "professional" reporters and left-wing activists outraged about three successful video stings targeting President Obama's old friends at the left-wing tax-subsidized outfit ACORN.

Conservative documentarian James O'Keefe and writer Hannah Giles, working for the BigGovernment.com website, posed as a pimp and prostitute during visits to ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn. ACORN housing officials and tax advisers offered them brazen suggestions on how to lie on their applications, disguise their income, obscure their child sex-ring business and hide cash from abusive johns. ("When you buy the house with the backyard, you get a tin," an ACORN counselor in New York told Giles, "and you bury it down in there, cover it and put the grass over it.")

Summing up the ACORN Housing Corporation philosophy, another Brooklyn ACORN official told the undercover pair bluntly: "Honesty is not going to get you the house."

ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson blasted the investigation as "gotcha journalism." Echoing ACORN's defenders, MSNBC anchor Norah O'Donnell fretted on Tuesday that Giles and O'Keefe's methods "might be viewed as entrapment. That some conservative activists used hidden cameras to get this stuff on camera."

O'Donnell has apparently forgotten the inglorious history of news "entrapment" by her betters at NBC News.

This is the network that surreptitiously rigged GM pickup trucks in staged crash tests in 1993 to show that the vehicles were unsafe -- and failed to inform viewers that the simulations used incendiary devices to ignite the explosions. Jane Pauley admitted in a nationally televised apology that "NBC's contractor did put incendiary devices under the trucks to ensure there would be a fire if gasoline were released from the gas tank. NBC personnel knew this before we aired the program, but the public was not informed because consultants at the scene told us the devices did not start the fire. We agree with GM that we should have told the viewer about these devices."

This is the network that pioneered the "To Catch a Predator" series -- an investigative sting operation to nab Internet pedophiles. Until last year, the journalists worked with activist group Perverted Justice, whose members posed as children in web chat rooms to lure alleged pedophiles to a residential home.

This is the network that sent out an intrepid NBC News reporter in a canoe to cover treacherous New Jersey flooding in 2005 -- only to be shown up by passers-by who sloshed in front of the camera and demonstrated that the water was only a few inches deep.

Continued in article

The Senate voted 83-7 to ban ACORN's Federal funding. ACORN's only hope is backroom politics of House Speaker Pelosi.
Watch the CNBC Video --- http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?play=1&video=1255619356

 

Obamacare Updates for September 24, 2009

One woman Michelle Obama will not mention
Yes, First Lady Michelle Obama is now aggressively crusading for her husband’s health care takeover under the guise of championing woman who have been “crushed” by the system . . . I blogged about Michelle Obama’s role in creating a patient-dumping scheme for the University of Chicago Medical Center back in
March. With her husband and the Democrats unleashing health care horror story anecdotes to gin up public fear and build support for the beleaguered Obamacare plan, my syndicated column today revisits the kind of “reform” the Obamas and their Chicago cronies champion — and who benefits.Here’s a challenge to the ABC News Obamacare infomercial producers. I dare you to ask President Obama this question: What have you done for Dontae Adams, lately? One woman Mrs. Obama won’t be spotlighting? The mother of Dontae Adams.
Michelle Malkin,  September 18, 2009 ---
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/18/one-woman-michelle-obama-will-not-mention/

ACORN could open Pandora's box
In the wake of Fox News reporting on the unfolding ACORN scandal, ACORN is now threatening to sue the network. Now that Fox is actually breaking news on this story by showing new videos, ACORN might just do it. Fox News should pray that ACORN does sue, because it would blow the doors off this story, possibly destroying ACORN and erupting into a political scandal in Washington.
Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski, Townhall, September 21, 2009 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/KenBlackwell/2009/09/21/acorn_could_open_pandoras_box

In 2005, Citibank and ACORN Housing Corporation -- which received tens of millions of tax dollars under the Bush administration alone -- began recruiting Mexican illegal aliens for a lucrative program offering loans with below-market interest rates, down-payment assistance and no mortgage insurance requirements. Instead of the Social Security numbers required of law-abiding citizens, the program allows illegal alien applicants to supply loosely monitored tax identification numbers issued by the IRS . . . And ACORN advisory council member Eric Eve of Citigroup is a champion of the ACORN/Citibank illegal alien loan program that openly undermines immigration laws and integrity in banking. The truth is more sordid than any fictional scenarios caught on tape: ACORN is a corrupt enterprise.
Michelle Malkin, "ACORN's Illegal Alien Home Loan Racket," Frontpage, September 18, 2009 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/09/18/acorns_illegal_alien_home_loan_racket

"Fact Check:  Obama Uses Iffy Math on Deficit Pledge," SmartPros, September 10, 2009 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x67604.xml

President Barack Obama used only-in-Washington accounting Wednesday when he promised to overhaul the nation's health care system without adding "one dime" to the deficit. By conventional arithmetic, Democratic plans would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars.

The president's speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance.

A look at some of Obama's claims and how they square with the facts or the fuller story:

---

OBAMA: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period."

THE FACTS: Though there's no final plan yet, the White House and congressional Democrats already have shown they're ready to skirt the no-new-deficits pledge.

House Democrats offered a bill that the Congressional Budget Office said would add $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years. But Democrats and Obama administration officials claimed the bill actually was deficit-neutral. They said they simply didn't have to count $245 billion of it - the cost of adjusting Medicare reimbursement rates so physicians don't face big annual pay cuts.

Their reasoning was that they already had decided to exempt this "doc fix" from congressional rules that require new programs to be paid for. In other words, it doesn't have to be paid for because they decided it doesn't have to be paid for.

The administration also said that since Obama already had included the doctor payment in his 10-year budget proposal, it didn't have to be counted again.

That aside, the long-term prognosis for costs of the health care legislation has not been good.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf had this to say in July: "We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount."

---

OBAMA: "Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have."

THE FACTS: That's correct, as far as it goes. But neither can the plan guarantee that people can keep their current coverage. Employers sponsor coverage for most families, and they'd be free to change their health plans in ways that workers may not like, or drop insurance altogether. The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the health care bill written by House Democrats and said that by 2016 some 3 million people who now have employer-based care would lose it because their employers would decide to stop offering it.

In the past Obama repeatedly said, "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period." Now he's stopping short of that unconditional guarantee by saying nothing in the plan "requires" any change.

---

OBAMA: "The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally." One congressman, South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson, shouted "You lie!" from his seat in the House chamber when Obama made this assertion. Wilson later apologized.

THE FACTS: The facts back up Obama. The House version of the health care bill explicitly prohibits spending any federal money to help illegal immigrants get health care coverage. Illegal immigrants could buy private health insurance, as many do now, but wouldn't get tax subsidies to help them. Still, Republicans say there are not sufficient citizenship verification requirements to ensure illegal immigrants are excluded from benefits they are not due.

---

OBAMA: "Don't pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut. ... That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare."

THE FACTS: Obama and congressional Democrats want to pay for their health care plans in part by reducing Medicare payments to providers by more than $500 billion over 10 years. The cuts would largely hit hospitals and Medicare Advantage, the part of the Medicare program operated through private insurance companies.

Although wasteful spending in Medicare is widely acknowledged, many experts believe some seniors almost certainly would see reduced benefits from the cuts. That's particularly true for the 25 percent of Medicare users covered through Medicare Advantage.

Supporters contend that providers could absorb the cuts by improving how they operate and wouldn't have to reduce benefits or pass along costs. But there's certainly no guarantee they wouldn't.

---

OBAMA: Requiring insurance companies to cover preventive care like mammograms and colonoscopies "makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives."

THE FACTS: Studies have shown that much preventive care - particularly tests like the ones Obama mentions - actually costs money instead of saving it. That's because detecting acute diseases like breast cancer in their early stages involves testing many people who would never end up developing the disease. The costs of a large number of tests, even if they're relatively cheap, will outweigh the costs of caring for the minority of people who would have ended up getting sick without the testing.

The Congressional Budget Office wrote in August: "The evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall."

That doesn't mean preventive care doesn't make sense or save lives. It just doesn't save money.

---

OBAMA: "If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage."

THE FACTS: It's not just a matter of being able to get coverage. Most people would have to get coverage under the law, if his plan is adopted.

In his speech, Obama endorsed mandatory coverage for individuals, an approach he did not embrace as a candidate.

He proposed during the campaign - as he does now - that larger businesses be required to offer insurance to workers or else pay into a fund. But he rejected the idea of requiring individuals to obtain insurance. He said people would get insurance without being forced to do so by the law, if coverage were made affordable. And he repeatedly criticized his Democratic primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for proposing to mandate coverage.

"To force people to get health insurance, you've got to have a very harsh penalty," he said in a February 2008 debate.

Now, he says, "individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance."

He proposes a hardship waiver, exempting from the requirement those who cannot afford coverage despite increased federal aid.

---

OBAMA: "There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage."

THE FACTS: Obama time and again has referred to the number of uninsured as 46 million, a figure based on year-old Census data. The new number is based on an analysis by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, which concluded that about two-thirds of Americans without insurance are poor or near poor. "These individuals are less likely to be offered employer-sponsored coverage or to be able to afford to purchase their own coverage," the report said. By using the new figure, Obama avoids criticism that he is including individuals, particularly healthy young people, who choose not to obtain health insurance.

Jensen Comment
In fairness, a single-payer medical insurance provider that covered all Americans would probably result in cost savings in the long run. However, President Obama realistically proclaims that such an abrupt changeover with lead to unprecedented turmoil and inefficiencies, to say nothing of quality of care, if the U.S. Government abruptly decided to insure 300 million Americans in one fell swoop.

And the cost of phasing in a single-payer system would cause massive deficits, including the windfall profits that government would have to pay present medical insurance companies to operate efficiently over the years before they must operate before being terminated.

The fact of the matter is that we will be forced to live with inefficient private insurers until they are shut down or take over by government. In the meantime, government spending deficits will soar due to increased numbers of insured Americans, illegal immigrants, and expanded scope of coverage (mental health, pre-existing conditions, marriage counseling, and expanded social services).

The Lie: AARP perpetuates a lie that government run insurance, like Medicare, is a good deal for patients and taxpayers.
To put the reader at ease the (AARP) article says that government run health care can’t be so bad since, after all, Medicare is government run health care and everybody loves it. The article omits the fact that Medicare is $38 trillion in the red. Yes, trillion with a “tr”) and by Obama’s own admission is overrun by $500 billion of waste, fraud and abuse. Obama says Medicare and Medicaid are responsible for our deficits. So what does he do? He proposes the vast expansion of the Medicare and Medicaid programs to further balloon our deficits and our health care inflation.
Herb Dennenberg, "AARP: The Hype, The Lies, The Facts," The Bulletin (Philadelphia's oldest newspaper), September 21, 2009 --- Click Here

Meanwhile, we have the case of the Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons (AARP), and its fanciful Medicare claims. The self-styled seniors lobby is using all its money and influence to cheer on ObamaCare, even though polls show that most retired persons oppose it. AARP has spent millions of dollars on its TV ad campaign and bulletins and newsletters to its members, including eight million direct-mail letters over Labor Day. The AARP Web site claims that it is a "myth" that "health care reform will hurt Medicare," while it is a "fact" that "none of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress will cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs."
"Medicare and Gag Orders Humana gets whacked for telling the truth, AARP gets a pass for spreading falsehoods," The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2009 --- Click Here


The Lie:  The health insurance mandate is not a tax.

"Yes, health-insurance mandate is a tax."  by Donald Lambro, Townhall, September 23, 2009 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/DonaldLambro/2009/09/23/yes,_health-insurance_mandate_is_a_tax 

President Obama absolutely refuses to acknowledge there is a huge middle-class tax in the Senate Finance Committee's healthcare bill. The president flatly denies the legislation that the White House supports contains a stiff penalty tax that would hit uninsured middle-income people the hardest -- the very folks he promised would never see their taxes rise under his presidency.

Obama has repeatedly stated that promise throughout the healthcare debate, despite evidence to the contrary, and no one in the national news media has called him on it. That is, until George Stephanopoulos raised the issue with him Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

First, Stephanopoulos reminded the president that in his campaign for the presidency he was "against the individual mandate" that all Americans be required to buy health insurance.

"Yes," Obama replied.

Then Stephanopoulos hit him with the question no one apparently had asked him before. Pointing out that the Finance Committee plan contained just such a mandate whereby "the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't," he asked, "How is that not a tax?"

Obama replied, "No, but ... but, George, you ... can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase."

"You reject that it's a tax increase?" Stephanopoulos asked. Obama said, "I absolutely reject that notion."

But if Obama looked on page 29 of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus' legislation -- the bill he hopes will enact his healthcare plans into law -- he would have read this line: "The consequence for not maintaining (health) insurance would be an excise tax."

What part of those two words doesn't he understand? The government imposes a raft of excise taxes on all of us: the tires for our cars, alcoholic beverages, jewelry and many other purchases. Now it wants to add health insurance to the tax-revenue list as a penalty for those who do not purchase a product the feds insist you must buy or else face fines up to $950 for an individual and up to $3,800 a year for a family.

Continued in article

 


"Government Medicine vs. the Elderly:  In Britain in 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths came after 'terminal sedation," by Rupert Darwall, The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2009 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203917304574412680569936844.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Rarely has the Atlantic seemed as wide as when America's health-care debate provoked a near unanimous response from British politicians boasting of the superiority of their country's National Health Service. Prime Minister Gordon Brown used Twitter to tell the world that the NHS can mean the difference between life and death. His wife added, "we love the NHS." Opposition leader David Cameron tweeted back that his plans to outspend Labour showed the Conservatives were more committed to the NHS than Labour.

This outbreak of NHS jingoism was brought to an abrupt halt by the Patients Association, an independent charity. In a report, the association presented a catalogue of end-of-life cases that demonstrated, in its words, "a consistent pattern of shocking standards of care." It provided details of what it described as "appalling treatment," which could be found across the NHS.

A few days later, a group of senior doctors and health-care experts wrote to a national newspaper expressing their concern about the Liverpool Care Pathway, a palliative program being rolled out across the NHS involving the withdrawal of fluids and nourishment for patients thought to be dying. Noting that in 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths in the U.K. came after "terminal sedation," their letter concluded with the chilling observation that experienced doctors know that sometimes "when all but essential drugs are stopped, 'dying' patients get better" if they are allowed to.

The usual justification for socialized health care is to provide access to quality health care for the poor and disadvantaged. But this function can be more efficiently performed through the benefits system and the payment of refundable tax credits.

The real justification for socialized medicine is left unstated: Because health-care resources are assumed to be fixed, those resources should be prioritized for those who can benefit most from medical treatment. Thus the NHS acts as Britain's national triage service, deciding who is most likely to respond best to treatment and allocating health care accordingly.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the NHS is institutionally ageist. The elderly have fewer years left to them; why then should they get health-care resources that would benefit a younger person more? An analysis by a senior U.K.-based health-care expert earlier this decade found that in the U.S. health-care spending per capita goes up steeply for the elderly, while the U.K. didn't show the same pattern. The U.K.'s pattern of health-care spending by age had more in common with the former Soviet bloc.

A scarcity assumption similar to the British mentality underlies President Barack Obama's proposed health-care overhaul. "We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it," Mr. Obama claimed in his address to Congress last Wednesday, a situation that, he said, threatened America's economic competitiveness.

This assertion is seldom challenged. Yet what makes health care different from spending on, say, information technology—or any category of consumer service—such that spending on health care is uniquely bad for the American economy? Distortions like malpractice suits that lead to higher costs or the absence of consumer price consciousness do result in a misallocation of resources. That should be an argument for tackling those distortions. But if high health-care spending otherwise reflects the preferences of millions of consumers, why the fuss?

The case for ObamaCare, as with the NHS, rests on what might be termed the "lump of health care" fallacy. But in a market-based system triggering one person's contractual rights to health care does not invalidate someone else's health policy. Instead, increased demand for health care incentivizes new drugs, new therapies and better ways of delivering health care. Government-administered systems are so slow and clumsy that they turn the lump of health-care fallacy into a reality.

According to the 2002 Wanless report, used by Tony Blair's government to justify a large tax hike to fund the higher spending, the NHS is late to adopt and slow to diffuse new technology. Still, NHS spending more than doubled to £103 billion in 2009-10 from £40 billion in 1999-2000, equivalent to an average growth rate of over 7% a year after inflation.

In 1965, economist (and future Nobel laureate) James Buchanan observed of the 17-year old NHS that "hospital facilities are overcrowded, and long delays in securing treatment, save for strictly emergency cases, are universally noted." Forty-four years later, matters are little improved. The Wanless report found that of the five countries it looked at, the U.S. was the only one to be both an early adopter and rapid diffuser of new medical techniques. It is the world's principal engine driving medical advance. If the U.S. gets health-care reform wrong, the rest of the world will suffer too.

Mr. Darwall, a London-based strategist, is currently writing a book on the history of global warming, to be published by Quartet Books in Spring 2010.

Jensen Comment
If and when I become gaga please sedate me to the max.

 

 

Bob Jensen's threads on Obamacare Lies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

Return to Tidbits on September 24, 2009 edition of Tidbits ---
 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090924.htm