"We're Going to Control The Insurance Companies!"

Hat-tip: Weasel Zippers via Instapundit

"Doc-Fix Gate"

Those of us paying attention knew it was true, but now someone within the Democrat ranks has leaked proof:

“As most health staff knows, leadership and the White House are working with the AMA to rally physicians for a full SGR ["sustainable growth rate" for medicare reimbursements to doctors] repeal later this spring. However, both health and communications staff should understand we do not want that policy discussion discussed at this time, lest (it) complicate the last critical push to pass health reform,” according to the memo.

The memo helps explains why the American Medical Association has supported reform even though their top legislative priority, the doc fix, was left out. The group is working behind the scenes with Democratic leadership and the White House to fix the cuts later this year.

And in the prior paragraph of the memo was this astonishingly honest statement:

"The inclusion of a full SGR repeal would undermine reform's budget neutrality."

According to the Politico piece, SGR repeal would increase the deficit another $371 ba-billion.

Gee, it's a good thing Rep. Betsy Markey made sure that the CBO scored the legislation as "deficit reducing." I guess she didn't get the memo, addressed to "Democratic Health and Communications Staff."

He Claims to Believe in Property Rights...

Yet, as a service to ThreeSourcers who do not subscribe to the WSJ (Heretics!), I provide the full text of their ObamaCare Editorial today.

Gotta go now, Rupert's jack-booted thugs are at the door...

March Madness

Continue reading "He Claims to Believe in Property Rights..."

Will She Even Bother to Run Again?

Despite what meager effort I and my family and those I emailed in CO-4 could make, today's fake CBO report gave Betsy Markey the cover she wanted to commit political suicide in this traditionally conservative district. I hope voters remember the "Markey Mistake" for a long, long time.

Markey's decision to vote in favor of the bill will almost certainly become a dominant issue for Republicans as they try to oust her in November. Markey in 2008 became the first Democrat in 36 years to win the 4th Congressional District seat, and national Republicans have made ousting her a top priority this year.

Two recent polls released by business groups opposed to the Democrats' health care bill showed a majority of district residents were against the bill.

Markey said her decision to support the bill was about policy, not politics.
"I'm not a career politician and I've said this before, this is not a stepping stone for another career. I'm not here as a place to retire," she said.

Ironically, I think she just did exactly that.

Not a Dealbreaker?

Blog friend Terri asks the question which perplexes me: "With Romneycare, I often wonder why he polls so high."

She links to a Mark Steyn Post that answers "He shouldn't"

According to what he's told at least a couple of NR audiences I've been among, he sought to solve a problem that doesn't exist — ie, that the uninsured are using emergency rooms as their family doctor, and supposedly the rest of the populace has to pick up the tab for that in increased health-care costs. In fact, ER use by the uninsured is in rough proportion to their percentage of the population, and the rest of the populace has to pick up a far greater tab for the under-reimbursement of doctors by Medicare. In other words, Mitt misdiagnosed the disease, and his prescription was a bigger dose of it:

The result is all the problems familiar to patients in socialized systems — longer wait times, fewer doctors, overstretched emergency rooms — with the uniquely American wrinkle of dramatically increased costs. Mass. residents now pay 27 percent more than the U.S. average.

Many other things I like about the Gov, but if this isn't a dealbreaker as we watch ObamaCare®, then I really am going to have to join the Libertoids.

Coffeehousin'

Great feedback on the last instrumental. (Umm, you don't suppose that says something about my vocals, do you?) so here is Harold Arlen's "Over the Rainbow."

My friend Kirk is in a trio in the guest slot again.

www.liveatthecoffeehouse.com

More Patients - Fewer Doctors

First, I don't believe that Obamacare would lead to 31 million more patients. I believe they're all receiving care when they need it already but I went with it for a snappy title. Investor's Business Daily surveyed some 25,000 doctors last summer (about 1400 of whom responded) and reported that 45% said they'd close their practice or retire early if Obamacare passed. And they opposed the measure two to one. The left-stream media slammed this as "ludicrous."

Yesterday IBD reported a similar survey by a physician's job placement firm, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, with similar findings:

This poll, conducted by the Medicus Firm, a physician search and consulting outfit, found that 29.2% of the nearly 1,200 doctors it queried said they would quit or retire early if a health overhaul were passed into law. That number jumped to 45.7% — nearly identical to our own — if a public option were included.

(...)

In the end, it's clear: A health care overhaul, as it's now being pushed, could lead to a precipitous drop in the number of doctors.

"Many physicians feel that they cannot continue to practice if patient loads increase while pay decreases," wrote Kevin Perpetua, managing partner of the Medicus Firm, summing up his findings.

*Ahem* - Duh. (This is John Galt speaking.)

Partisan Hackery

Oh, those Blue Dogs -- ain't they cute when they're puppies? Big brown eyes and floppy ears. I just love 'em. Professor Reynolds shares an email from Roy Herron, who's running as a Democrat in TN-08:

My top three priorities in Washington will be fiscal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, and fiscal responsibility.

Washington is mortgaging the future of my sons and your children and our grandchildren. And Washington is risking the future of this country with trillions in debt.

I drive a 12-year-old truck with 375,000 miles on it. My sons call me cheap, but Washington needs more of us with 375,000-mile pickups who’ll spend your money like our own.

Prompting me to write to his Instantness:

Apologies in advance for filling your inbox with partisan hackery, but:

Roy Herron sounds like just what we need in Congress. Will he vote for Rep Nancy Pelosi as Speaker?

I assume, yes, he is running as a Democrat. Watching her "pass" health care by any-means-necessary-and-some-things-that-are-not-really-means-at-all makes me skeptical of some guys no matter how old their trucks.

See, those blue dog pups grow up to be mangy, mean, bad-tempered congressdogs.

Destroy America or Become a National Hero?

I just called my congressperson, U.S. Representative Betsy Markey of CO-4. Her website touts a report that she is one of the most centrist and independent members of congress. The House Switchboard number was busy so I called her office directly and got right through.

I asked if the congresswoman had decided how she intends to vote on the Health Care bill. Her staffer told me that she is waiting for a cost analysis by the CBO and has not yet made a decision. I said, "I am her constituent, residing near Fort Lupton, and I would like to encourage her to vote NO. I think if she votes yes then this won't be the United States of America any more and if she votes no she will become one of a handful of national heroes."

I was asked for my name and contact information, which I gave. (Not that they couldn't have guessed I'm a registered Republican anyway.)

Her D.C. office number is: 202.225.4676

UPDATE: 3/18 4:25pm MDT

The verdict is in: GUILTY

Colorado following California into Anti-Coal Stupidity

Watch out Pennysylvania, you're probably next. Yesterday Colorado's lame-duck governor announced a "Clean Air - Clean Jobs Act" that looks like it's on the fast track through the state legislature, having "bipartisan" sponsorship in both the house and the senate. The sponsoring GOP senator, in particular, draws my ire. It's been a while since I've felt the need to publish outside of the friendly confines of ThreeSources, but I wrote the editor of the Denver Post about it.

Re-thinking Josh Penry

Dear Editor,

Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry has been making a name for himself in conservative circles but it may be time to reconsider. The Post reported Tuesday that he co-sponsored Governor Ritter's new "Clean Air - Clean Jobs Act" that outlaws coal power in Colorado. Have we not learned from California's mistake? Electricity costs 40% more there, largely due to their coal ban. Why do it?

Penry isn’t quoted but reasons given include anticipation of federal regulations that could “lead to a 4 to 6 percent increase in rates.” That’s still 34% less than California. Xcel Energy and natural gas companies support the plan. The latter because coal always wins in a free-market; the former because they’ll get money for new plants and cover for raising rates. It’s like light bulb manufacturers encouraging the ban on cheap light bulbs.

And then there are coal’s higher carbon emissions. As Curtis Hubbard alluded last month on his Post blog, if the events of the past year haven’t convinced us that the whole ‘Climate Change’ issue was a fraud we have reason now to at least ask the question.

Quote of the Day

One more post and we're goiing to need a "Prius" Category.

IS IT WRONG TO make speeding-Prius jokes? One of my colleagues thinks the whole Prius thing will actually be good for Toyota -- before, Priuses were associated with smug hipsters, but now they'll be associated with death-defying daredevils! -- Glenn Reynolds (well, his colleague)

Salsa Clinic Staffing

Things are looking up for our Mexican Health Care venture! Insty links to this NEJM Survey of physicians who might "Go Galt" if ObamaCare® passes. There's some up and down and the leftist slant of NEJM's readership shows through in spots ("0.8% feel income will 'improve dramatically' with a public option." -- kinda hope that's not my doctor...)

But the money quote for us is:

Health Reform and Primary Care Physicians
* 46.3% of primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) feel that the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.

To which I say "Don't Go Galt, Go Kranz!" Join us in sunny Puerto Viarta at a free market hospital serving North America and the world.

Caucus Nite!

In addition to Cory Gardner I'll be caucusing for Ken Buck tonight:

Whenever your caucus is, wherever you live ... GO. Find the grassroots candidates. Support them. Tell the McCain PAC money boys (and in Colorado's case, girls) to go home. The GOP primary is the only place you can make a real difference. By the time the general election rolls around it's just lesser-of-evils time. In Colorado, tonight's the night. 7 pm.

CO GOP caucus location info here: http://www.cologop.org/

UPDATE:

Caucus Report - There were 13 participants from our precinct who chose 4 delegates from 5 nominees. Yours truly was one of those selected (and the only one to be chosen unanimously, with 13 of 13 votes.) This is even more remarkable when you consider that one of the couples in attendance had expressed their strong preference for Jane Norton, since they know her personally. Even though I was unabashedly for her chief rival, Ken Buck, the both of them voted for me. I had chatted them up about the other races and the general condition of the country. I also volunteered to be precinct secretary and one of two precinct chairmen for the next go 'round. When given my chance at a mini campaign speech I said I'm not a member of any TEA Party or 9.12 groups but I attend the Tea Parties when they happen and that best describes my priorities. I said that I consider over taxation and regulation at the federal level to be the chief reason for the sad state of the economy these days. Charity should start at home and that sort of thing. In closing I joked that everyone should "vote for me because I WON'T buy your vote."

Our precinct/district results were:

Buck - 9/49
Norton - 4/20

McInnis - 7/42
Maes - 6/38

Gardner - 11/49
Lucero - 2/16
Brown - 0/9

Statewide results for Senate and Governor are here.

As of (Good Lord!) 1:15am MDT (last updated 11:25pm with 94% reporting) the numbers are:

Governor
McInnis - 15,213 (60%)
Maes - 9,952 (39.3%)

Senate
Buck - 9,324 (37.9%)
Norton - 9,295 (37.7%)
Wiens - 4,054 (16.5%)

Thoughts:

- If the rankings hold through the final count this is a major coup for the grassroots candidate Ken Buck over the much better funded Norton. I think he was just hoping for a good showing to get some credibility. An outright win is a bonus.

- Wiens spent a lot of ad money too, mostly hammering Norton for supporting the tax grab Referendum C. If he drops out none of his support will go to her.

- Buck's current margin of victory is 29 votes, of which two were my dad and me. It sure feels good to make a difference like that.

Good night. And, goodnight!

UPDATE II:
As of 10:30 AM 3/18, 99.69% reporting -

Governor
McInnis - 15,385 (59.1%)
Maes - 10,421 (40.1%)

Senate
Buck - 9,776 (38.2%)
Norton - 9,613 (37.5%)
Wiens - 4,223 (16.5%)

Buck's margin has grown - from 29 to 163.
Winner winner, chicken dinner!

Grame Frost, Call Your Office

We all have a favorite kind of story or blog post. I'll readily confess mine is exposing the huckster prop in a Democratic "feel their pain" pitch.

I suppose it goes back farther, but it all started for me with Grame Frost the 12-year-old poster boy for SCHIP. Way back in 2007, mean ol' President George W Bush vetoed the expansion of SCHIP (I do enjoy reminding right-wing Bush haters of this). So the Democrats chose young Grame to deliver their radio response. He pulled the heartstrings as he was recovering from a serious accident and his medical bills were affecting his parents.

Well, Dad turns out to be a hyper-partisan and a loser. He quit a good job to start his own woodworking business. The more one looked, the less sympathetic the family appeared.

I invoked their name on these pages in July of 2008. The Nunez family, in George Bush's Evil Amerikkka, could not afford meat. They were highlighted on an NPR story. But the 'R' is for radio, and once people saw the extremely obese family, sympathy rolled off a bit.

Today, FOXNews via Gateway Pundit brings us Natoma Canfield. She was President Obama's prop in Ohio -- follow the link to hear the President say "I am here for Natoma."

Natoma has cancer and is dying in the street without care after being kicked out of her home for failure to pay her medical bills and has nothing to eat or wear or...no....wait a minute, this just in: No, it appears she is in a top flight cancer center receiving care after 12 years of not working and dropping her insurance. She will get financial aid and will not lose her house:

Lyman Sornberger, executive director of patient financial services at the Cleveland Clinic, said "all indications" at the outset are that she will be considered for assistance.

"She may be eligible for state Medicaid … and/or she will be eligible for charity (care) of some form or type. … In my personal opinion, she will be eligible for something," he said, adding that Canfield should not be worried about losing her home.

"Cleveland Clinic will not put a lien on her home," he said.

Well, I'm glad that ended so well, aren't you?

Reason Saves Cleveland

I do take my shots at Reason Magazine. But their new Reason TV series "Reason Saves Cleveland" with Drew Carey is really shaping up. Part One is a setup piece: well worth watching -- especially for the clip of the Broncos-Browns AFC Championship.

But part two gets starts to get into specifics. Fix the schools:

In Markets We Trust II

Last Friday, Jack Calfee asked if health insurance profits are so healthy, why weren't large firms like Walmart, Microsoft and the like diving in. I mean, who would miss a chance to bilk an unsuspecting public out of -- wait for it -- $66?

Mark Perry at The American links to the Calfee piece and adds the $66 figure to the discussion:

Using the industry profit margin of 2.2 percent last year, it means that insurance companies make only about $66 on average per policy in profits for individual coverage, and less than $140 in profits for each family policy.

Wow! Two-point-two percent profit! Man, why doesn't every business give up the stupid things they do and hop into this lucrative pool?

Government Motives

Brother jg gets the comment of the week for suggesting -- at the end of "Cousin Milton's" devastating takedown of ObamaCare:

Analysis above is, of course, predicated on the notion that extending longevity and quality of life are the intended goal of the health care system.

Thanks to government, they can actually claim a "crisis" in health care. And yet health insurance has similar saturation rates as broadband Internet. Ergo, Crisis! Ergo, government needed!

Last year, Congress directed the FCC to develop a plan to make high-speed Internet available to more people. But given that 95% of Americans already have access to some form of broadband—and 94% can choose from at least four wireless carriers—rapid broadband deployment is already occurring without new government mandates.
[...]
In 2009 alone, broadband providers spent nearly $60 billion on their networks. Absent any evidence of market failure, the best course for the FCC is to report back to Congress that a broadband industrial policy is unnecessary. Instead, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is moving to increase the reach of his agency and expand government control of the Web.

I just dropped my 7Mb DSL for a screamin' 16Mb pipe. The good folks at Comcast run as high as 50 Mb out to my condo, which is not in the sticks but is isolated from other dense development.

So, government has a chance to declare victory and go home. But, to coin a phrase, analysis above is, of course, predicated on the notion that extending access to broadband is the intended goal of the system.

"I'm Going to Pick a Fight"

Those were the words of William Wallace [1:03] as he set out to meet representatives of English tyranny over Scotland. They're the same words I heard a GOP candidate for CO-4 say to a fellow debate attendee. She had asked him, "How long do you want to keep this job?" Cory's reply was, "I don't want to go to Washington to make friends, I'm going to pick a fight." There were only a few of us standing around him at the time so I don't believe it was a rehearsed line, but it sure made an impression on me: He's going to pick a fight with representatives of federal tyranny over America.

Cory was the only one of the four candidates not wearing cowboy boots so I joked with dagny, "Cross him off the list!" But by the end of the debate the other three had not won me over like Gardner did. I went to meet him afterwards and that's where the quote comes from. My question for him was whether he would have a problem having any of the other three candidates on his "team" to which he said, "Not at all." I had a better question for him this morning, which you can read about below the fold.

I intend to stand for election as a delegate for Cory at tomorrow's GOP caucus.

Continue reading ""I'm Going to Pick a Fight""

Quote of the Day

Dear choir, today's sermon:

America has the finest health care delivery system in the world. Let's not forget that and put it at risk in the name of reform. Desperate souls across the globe flock to our shores and cross our borders every day to seek our care. Why? Our system provides cures while the government-run systems from which they flee do not. Compare Europe's common cancer mortality rates to America's: breast cancer - 52 percent higher in Germany and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom; prostate cancer - a staggering 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway; colon cancer - 40 percent higher in the United Kingdom.

Look closer at the United Kingdom. Britain's higher cancer mortality rate results in 25,000 more cancer deaths per year compared to a similar population size in the United States. But because the U.S. population is roughly five times larger than the United Kingdom's, that would translate into 125,000 unnecessary American cancer deaths every year. This is more than all the mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, cousins and children in Topeka, Kan. And keep in mind, these numbers are for cancer alone. America also has better survival rates for other major killers, such as heart attacks and strokes. Whatever we do, let us not surrender the great gains we have made. First, do no harm. Lives are at stake. -- Dr. Milton R. Wolf, Barack Obama's second cousin once removed.

Give Thanks for What Divides Us

I have been meaning to ask whether any reproductive-rights ThreeSourcers had found new respect for pro-life legislators since they became the best chance to kill ObamaCare® and keep the last vestige of freedom in these United States.

But then I saw this, and I am laughing too hard to type:

That's especially true given yesterday's report indicating that at least seven of Stupak's faction have confirmed they will not vote for a reform bill without a change in the abortion language.

Another single-issue conflict with a different House faction also reared its head: The Hispanic Caucus is now publicly threatening to torpedo reform because of the Senate bill's ultra-restrictive language prohibiting illegal immigrants from buying health insurance through the state-run insurances exchanges that would be set up. At least one high-profile former yes vote, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, has said that he'll switch his vote to no if the immigrant restrictions aren't changed. (For more detail on this conflict, see the Reason Foundation's Shikha Dalmia.)

Strange bedfellows indeed.

In Markets We Trust

Larry Kudlow knocked it out of the park last night. Like the White House releasing bad news on Friday night, I fear it will vanish into the aether. He hat-tipped Barry Ritholtz on the show but I do not see anything to link to in Ritholtz's blog or Kudlow's.

Thursday, more evidence came out that Lehman Bros. was "cooking the books" with the delightfully named accounting trick Repo 105. In short, Lehman moved a lot of paper off-balance sheet to lower its apparent leverage. Curiously, it was high grade debt that they could park at a hedge fund, not so much hiding the toxic assets.

The point Kudlow makes (and attributes to Ritholtz) is that only the short sellers discovered this chicanery. Kudlow listed the soi disant watchmen who missed it:

• Ernst & Young -- nope, nothing to see here folks!


• The New York Fed, chaired at the time by one Timothy Geithner


• The layers and layers of bullshit and suffocating regulations dictated by SarbOx


• The SEC

So, let me get this straight. No government regulator or oversight board got a whiff this was going on. Or worse, problems were found and were hidden. One of the last of the Big Eight accounting firms signed off on a Sgt Schultz audit.

And yet, at the same time, those who make a living trading Financials (and a pretty decent living I am led to believe) realized that it smelled funny. They sold short -- adding information to the market and positioning themselves to make a tidy profit if they were right (and limitless loss t'were they not). These people found the problem, caught it, and shut the company down. No regulator, no legislator, the aggregate wisdom of the market discovered and corrected the problem, while the regulators and regulations did nothing but add deadweight to all firms.

So how are we making sure this doesn't happen again? More regulation of course! A bigger role for Timothy Geithner to "manage" systemic risk: to bring that New York miracle to the whole country!

Oh, yeah, and propose a rule to ban short sellers.

Stop. World. Me want off.