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The Los Angeles Times looks at the health care debate going on in the UK.Britain is now embroiled in a healthcare argument of its own, prompted by a proposed shake-up of the NHS. And the phrase on everyone's lips is "American-style," which may not be as catchy as the "death panels" that Palin attributed to socialized medicine but which, over here, inspires pretty much the same kind of terror. Ask a Briton to describe "American-style" healthcare, and you'll hear a catalog of horrors that include grossly expensive and unnecessary medical procedures and a privatized system that favors the rich. For a people accustomed to free healthcare for all, regardless of income, the fact that millions of their cousins across the Atlantic have no insurance and can't afford decent treatment is a farce as well as a tragedy. But critics here warn that a similarly bleak future may await Britain if a government plan to put more power in the hands of doctors and introduce more competition into the NHS succeeds — privatization by stealth, they say.
Boykin is a retired U.S. Army general and the former United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.
Watch our hero hand the Fox anchor her head.
"This is legislative fraud that's been perpetrated by the president, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid."
A federal judge has rejected a lawsuit filed by Pat Robertson which was intended to allow people to exempt themselves from buying health insurance because God is going to cure all their illnesses.
Three of the plaintiffs — Margaret Peggy Lee Mead of Hillsborough, N.C., Charles Edward Lee of San Antonio and Susan Seven-Sky of West Harrison, N.Y. — are Christians who said they want to refuse all medical services for the rest of their lives because they believe God will heal their afflictions. They say being forced to buy insurance would conflict with their faith because they believe doing so would indicate they need "a backup plan and (are) not really sure whether God will, in fact, provide," the lawsuit said.Robertson himself did not depend on the grace of Jeebus when he underwent ten hours of open heart surgery in 2009.
(Tipped by JMG reader Paul)
Another classic from our hero. And how gross is it to see whackjob Rep. Virginia Foxx referred to as "Madame Chair"?
Rep. Michele Bachmann was the opening keynote speaker this morning on the first day of CPAC 2011.
The GOP's "repeal Obamacare" dog-and-pony show hit the wall in the Senate today. The vote was 47-51, right along party lines. Lieberman and Warner were not present.
With a Democratic president and Republicans 13 votes short of the 60 votes they would need to break a filibuster in the Senate, the odds of the law being overturned legislatively in the next two years are essentially zero. It is possible that it will be overturned in the courts, however; two federal judges have deemed the law unconstitutional, while two have found it to be constitutional. The issue will likely end up before the Supreme Court. In classic Senate fashion, the vote on the repeal measure was anything but straightforward. The repeal measure was actually in the form of an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, and the vote was actually on a "budget point of order" and needed 60 votes for passage.
South Dakota Tea Party-backed GOP state Rep. Hal Wick has proposed a bill that would require every adult in the state to by a gun "sufficient to provide for their personal self-defense."
The bill, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2012, would give people six months to acquire a firearm after turning 21. The provision does not apply to people who are barred from owning a firearm.Nor does the measure specify what type of firearm. Instead, residents would pick one “suitable to their temperament, physical capacity, and preference.” The measure is known as an act “to provide for an individual mandate to adult citizens to provide for the self defense of themselves and others.”Wick's bill, of course, is meant to mock "Obamacare" as being as equally unconstitutional as mandating gun ownership. Over at Salon, however, Alex Pareene points out that there's nothing unconstitutional about a state requiring one to purchase a gun.
No one expects the bill to become a law, but these guys are just trying to make a point, and that point is that they don't even understand conservative talking points about the individual mandate. The argument against the individual mandate is that the federal government doesn't have the power to compel people to purchase private insurance. It is not about what states can and can't do. That's kind of the fundamental issue, actually. The role and powers of the federal government.
CLASSIC rant from our favorite House Democrat.
Think Progress compiled this clip of GOP House members who today will vote to repeal "Obamacare." But none of them intend to give up their own "government-sponsored health insurance."
GOProud prefaces the release of its 2011 agenda with this message:
The so-called “gay agenda” is defined by the left through a narrow prism of legislative goals. In contrast to the approach of the left, GOProud’s agenda emphasizes conservative and libertarian principles that will improve the daily lives of all Americans, but especially gay and lesbian Americans.On their list of 2011 legislative goals: The repeal of healthcare reform, opposition to gun control, defense of constitutional originalism, cuts in corporate taxes, support for school vouchers, and opposition to federal marriage reform. Not stated is GOProud's opposition to ENDA, which we presume has not changed.
