Being vindictive doesn’t make you a great one, of course. And it’s certainly a stretch to say Obama ever will be. I’m just saying that you always need a vindictive streak if you want to truly change the status quo. In this sense, I have trouble seeing vindictiveness as a negative.

and reduce the number of doctors, which is already going on and picking up steam.
Only a genius could come up with a solution like this. But down the road expect additional federal intrusions, but not improvements.
And a brain dead electorate remains supine.

Anyone else get the impression that – had he ever held a job in the private sector – BO would be that guy in the office who just loves to call meetings just to have a meeting?

I’m surprised he didn’t call a meeting to schedule this meeting. It would definitely fit BO’s MO.

Here’s another Onion-style parody on the long-term pain that’s likely to accompany a short-term feel-good health care deal:

http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/05/joe-bama-smooth-character-ad-campaign.html

–That’s worked out well for them.

Now, the Health Care Guys are lining up to feed the Crocodile again.

You know that old Norse tale about the eating contest where, after losing, the other contestant was revealed to be Fire?

0bama is the fire–he will never, ever have enough. He will consume us all and still be hungry.

The President keeps saying that government health care will cost so much less than our current system that the average family will save a couple hundred dollars a month.

If that’s the case, then why are they looking for hundreds of billions in cap and trade taxes, plus more billions in venial sin taxes like cokes and chips, plus God knows what other taxes in order to pay for it? If it’s so much cheaper, then why do they new to spend a couple trillion more?

Am I completely missing something, or is this something the press lackeys should be jumping all over every day? It’s as if the Obama approach is like a person bragging that they got a 10% mortgage instead of a 6% mortgage because they get a bigger tax break.

Mr. President, our healthcare system wasn’t “broken,” as you have said, until Government tried to “fix” it.

It’s like watching the clueless guy work on his car. “I think the alternator needs to be replaced!” Then when that doesn’t work, “Must be the transmission!” “No, wait, the timing belts.” Pretty soon, all you have is an engine in pieces and a much smaller bank account…

The Obama plan will not reduce the cost of health care. The cost of health care will increase dramatically under the Obama plan.

Here’s why:

Over the next 10 years — from 2010 to 2019 — they are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that’s equal to over $2 trillion. Two trillion dollars.

(emphasis mine)

Words have meaning.

Especially if they think that grovelling at the feet of Obama is going to save their hides. They clearly haven’t been paying attention to the financial and automotive sectors…

The pharmaceutical companies will be the next target once Obama eliminates the competition from the private insurers. If you think O doesn’t know how to run a car company, wait until he gets his hands on commercial drug development. I have friends at just about every pharma and medical devices company out there, and none of them are particularly comfortable right now. My mother-in-law, who up until she earned herself a director level position at a major pharma company was a bleeding heart lib, sounds downright free market now. She also understands the investment these companies make in bringing a successful product to market and the relatively short timeline they have to recoup that investment. Most drugs are on the market for 7-12 years before they go generic. The patent protection is good for 20 years, but is typically applied for near the beginning of development. This means that the pharma company has to fund 8-13 years of R&D before recovering any cost of a successful drug. But the pharma companies have to leverage their successful products not only to generate revenue to create future successful products, but also to recoup the losses from unsuccessful ones. For every Viagra, there are 15 drugs that never make it to market. And what’s the use in investigating all of that research and development money to produce a product when some bureaucrat can decide that it isn’t cost-effective enough for your doctor to prescribe? These companies simply won’t take the risk… But of course, they’ll be portrayed as “greedy” for preventing competing generics to come to market and inflating the cost of medicine, and “uncaring” for not bringing innovative new products to market.

As far as the individual insurance companies go, America is being fed a line and is biting hook, line, and sinker. Pres. Obama makes it a point to mention at every opportunity the fact that everyone will be able to keep their own private insurance if they so choose. This ignores several facts. The first is that many companies will simply stop offering health insurance benefits, effectively eliminating the choice for employees of those companies. This will lead to the second misleading idea in his statement; private insurance will become so expensive that few will elect to keep it. As the number of employers who stop offering health coverage increases, the risk pool for those private insurance companies decreases. This means that the risk is shared among fewer end customers which will result in sky-high premiums. Meanwhile, the government insurance plan will benefit from an exponentially larger risk pool, making those “rates” look much more attractive.

There are things that are definitely broken in both portions of the industry, as there are with any industry (I work in cellular, and believe me that industry has some broken business models!), but the direction that nationalized health care takes us is not only nearly impossible to reverse, but it does nothing to address the fundamental problems. It simply reassigns them to government, and one look at Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid will give you an idea as to how that will turn out.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090514/ap_on_go_co/us_health_overhaul

WASHINGTON – House Democrats are looking at big health care changes, including federal aid to help families earning up to $88,000 pay for insurance and a requirement that all must carry coverage.