The Barney Bureaucracy

Insurance

Best make sure you got plenty of life insurance 'cause the the government health insurance you're about to get is going to kill ya.  Read this...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/opinion/29herbert.html?_r=2

Daydream Believer

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day demonstrated that “the system worked.”  I guess the system worked because Northwest Airlines flight 253 was under contract to Homeland Security, all the passengers were US Sky Marshalls and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was mistakenly booked on the wrong flight out of Amsterdam. 
P.S.  Arnold Schwarzenegger gave me the Golden Gate Bridge as a Christmas present.

Good Idea

Most good ideas are pondered impulses.

Wise Then...Wise Now

Dr. Tom Coburn, M.D.

This vote is indeed historic. This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and stupidity. In the year of 2009, a Congress ignored the coming economic storm and impending bankruptcy of our entitlement programs and embarked on an ideological crusade to bring our nation as close to single-payer, government-run health care as possible. If this bill becomes law, future generations will rue this day and I will do everything in my power to work toward its repeal. This bill will ration care, cut Medicare, increase premiums, fund abortion and bury our children in debt.

This process was not compromise. This process was corruption. This bill passed because votes were bought and sold using the issue of abortion as a bargaining chip. The abortion provision alone makes this bill the most arrogant piece of legislation I have seen in Congress. Only the most condescending politician can believe it is appropriate to force Americans to pay for other people's abortions and to coerce medical professional to take the lives of unborn children.

The president and his allies genuinely believe that expanding government's control over health care is the way to control health care costs, improve lives and extend life spans. I don't question their motives, but I do question their judgment. History has already judged this argument and put it in its ash heap. The experience of government-run health care in the United States and around the world shows that access to a government program is not access to health care. Forty percent of doctors restrict access to Medicaid patients. Medicare already rations care and denies medical claims at twice the rate of private insurers. Nations like the United Kingdom with government run health care routinely ration care based on cost, and Canadians flock to the United States to escape waiting lines. Neither nation, incidentally, has managed to control costs as promised.
Our health care system needs to be reformed not because government's role has been too small but because it has been too big. Since the 1940's, government's role in health care has been expanded to the point that it controls 60 percent of our health care economy, according the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. If more government were the answer, health care would have been reformed long ago.

Finally, like many Americans, I've been disappointed by the lack of civility in this debate. The backers of the Reid bill, in many cases, have been unwilling argue for what they believe in - a single-payer health care system controlled by Washington. Their hide the ball strategy led them to rush this process and ram the bill through on the eve of the most important Christian holiday when they hoped the American people wouldn't be watching.

The rhetoric that will be remembered in this debate was not between elected officials but between elected officials and concerned citizens. The clear will of the public was not only ignored, but concerned citizens were personally attacked by politicians in power. The American people were derided as an angry mob, and were called evil-doers and unpatriotic by the leaders of the House and Senate.

The civility double standard in the Senate has been beneath the dignity of this body. Throughout this debate, backers of the Reid bill argued that more Americans will die if we do nothing than if we pass their bill. In their view, those who disagreed were not advancing a different vision for reform but were using scare tactics.

In my 25 years of practicing medicine I've treated countless patients who would have had their lives cut short had the Reid bill been in effect. I don't need to conjure up scare tactics or rely on talking points written by staff. I've seen cancers that would have gone undiagnosed, treatments that would have been denied, and care that would have been delayed had this bill been in effect.

On the final day of debate, one of my colleagues said my argument about rationing was Exhibit A in their case about scare tactics before ignoring every substantive argument I've made against this bill. I would contend this bill is Exhibit A in the American people's case against Washington. Soon enough, the American people will have the opportunity to ration the terms of the elected officials in Washington who sought to impose their will on the public.

Tom Coburn, M.D. is a U.S. Senator from Oklahoma.

Basket Weaving 101

Remember all the stories about the dumb college jocks and how they just managed to complete their academic requirements by taking courses like "Basket Weaving 101"? Well, it has just been discovered that all the politicians in Washington took that same basket weaving course when they were in college. And, for the past several years, instead of debating the social issues of the day and writing and passing laws, they have been working on weaving a gigantic basket that reportedly will be big enough so that they can put the entire United States of America in it. Not only is this basket special because of its enormity, but it also is a special kind of basket. It's called a "hand basket". And when it is finished you and I both know where this country is going to go.

Political Ethics-The Ultimate Oxymoron

Becoming a successful politician these days is very complicated and difficult.  But once you stop worrying about the ethics the process becomes very simple and getting elected is easy.

A Smile

Before a child learns to speak, they say "I Love You" with a smile.

The Window

When your world gets hurried, confusing, upside down and overwhelming, take a deep breath and go look out the window at your dreams.
P.S. You can even do it at night.

Counting

“Not everything that can be counted counts,
And not everything that counts can be counted.”
- Albert Einstein

The First Squeeze

"Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said 'I think I’ll drink whatever comes out of these when I squeeze ’em?'"
— Bill Watterson

Thinking

Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather make a monkey out of themselves than think.

Consensus Is Not Science

If just a consensus were science, our world would still be flat.

Never Upside Down

It seems like everytime you turn around these days the world is upside down because of some crisis, calamity or catastrophy. Good thing when God created the heavens and earth he also created gravity.

Foolproof Directions

Three lefts make a right and three rights make a left.

Climate And Weather

Climate is God's long term plan and weather is His daily moods.

Not Really Fast

Going through a fast food drive-thru these days reminds me of the time I got sick and had to have my amish neighbor take me to the hospital emergency room.

In The Woods

If your dream is someday living in the woods, beware of the skunks, and the snakes, and the spiders...and the silence!!!