Americans Want It, Canadians Don’t

Despite what you probably think, I am really sick and tired of writing about government run health care and the threat it is posing to America.  I just can’t believe how much information is out there that shows it just doesn’t work, yet people still push for it.  The ignorance and/or sheer evil never ceases to amaze me.

So today, I saw this article in the WSJ.  From the article:

Hoping to capitalize on patients who might otherwise go to the U.S. for speedier care, a network of technically illegal private clinics and surgical centers has sprung up in British Columbia, echoing a trend in Quebec. In October, the courts will be asked to decide whether the budding system should be sanctioned. More than 70 private health providers in British Columbia now schedule simple surgeries and tests such as MRIs with waits as short as a week or two, compared with the months it takes for a public surgical suite to become available for nonessential operations.

'What we have in Canada is access to a government, state-mandated wait list,' said Brian Day, a former Canadian Medical Assn. director who runs a private surgical center in Vancouver. 'You cannot force a citizen in a free and democratic society to simply wait for healthcare, and outlaw their ability to extricate themselves from a wait list.'"

In other words, while Congress debates whether to set U.S. medicine on the Canadian path, Canadians are desperately seeking their own private option. At least Ms. Woodkey had the safety valve of Montana and private American medicine. Once Congress passes a form of Medicare for all, with its inevitable government price controls and limits on care, Americans might not be so lucky.

Let's hope that by then Canada has expanded its own private option, so Americans will one day be able to visit Alberta for faster, better care. Unless Congress bars that too.

(Emphasis mine.)  I don’t think that’s quite the “Hope” Obama had in mind, but yes, let’s hope for at least that much.  At the most, let’s hope, fight and win the battle for free market health care in America. 

Things That Make Me Go, “Hmm…”

I have noticed that those that I know that do not have health insurance, live in or own larger houses than they really need.  They own iPods, iPhones, at least one computer, usually at least two TVs, sometimes new or nicer furniture than I have, new or nicer cars than I have, they dine out and/or eat too much (to the point they are overweight), they sometimes smoke and/or drink, they have more clothes and shoes than I have, have children and so on.

Perhaps if many of those without health insurance were spending their money on the necessities of life and not living beyond their means, they wouldn’t be demanding that people like me pay for their health care (or a multitude of other government programs), then perhaps I could afford some of those items listed in the first paragraph, much less a child.

Butt Out!

From the Heritage Society, "Environmentalists have declared war on your toilet paper."

"It's like the Hummer product for the paper industry," said Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We don't need old-growth forests . . . to wipe our behinds."

I don't want to know what this guy's hygiene is like. He's probably one of those filthy hippy-types you see up around Boulder (or was before he found a job in the Enviro "industry", as if that's really a valid field of production.)

Why do some people feel the need to tell me what's best for me? Who knows better than me, what's best for me?!

If manufacturers are forced to make only one ply, thin stuff, we'll just use 2-3 times as much of it to ... er, uh ... "get the job done", so what's the savings?! It's like these damn low flow toilets that are everywhere now. You have to flush them twice and sometimes more just to get them to work. Low flow shower heads are the same problem. They make you spend several extra minutes in the shower just to work yourself into a good lather, then it takes twice as long to rinse off and get the shampoo and conditioner out of your hair. How is that saving water?!

I tell ya what, if you want one ply, you buy the one ply. I will buy what I think is best for me, my family and my butt. BUTT OUT!

Shower Time

Evidently, I do my best thinking in the shower.  Santiago is such a good sport.  When he hears me gently calling, "babe!" he always comes to me.  I usually just ask him to add something to our shopping list, or email me a reminder about something, but occasionally it's a bit deeper than that.  On Sunday, with the shower curtain between us and shampoo in my hair, we discussed sub-conscious context dropping and the metaphysical status of evil.  

I only finished two semesters at Texas State University, but it's funny to think that I hated philosophy after taking classes there.  Now, it consumes my life and I can't get enough.  :-)

Obama and Health Care from a Boulder Democrat

My boss and I always chat for a bit about our weekends on Monday mornings.  This morning, he told me the story of a BBQ he had with neighbors on Saturday evening.

One of his neighbors, a die-hard Boulder liberal who tried to get everyone on the street to put up Obama signs during the election, etc., is a cardiologist.  He and my boss got into a discussion about health care.  Due to recent Medicare cuts, he and the other doctors in his high-end, highly respected office have had to take pay cuts.  After being so excited about Obama initially, he is now luke warm, but his wife interrupted him and exclaimed to my boss, "I'm ready to become a Republican!"  I guess she's not ready to give up her Lexus and daily shopping trips to pay for her fellow Americans' health care?

It seems that some think it's okay to loot, mooch and force others to pay higher taxes, until it's their own money.  At least this couple is seeing the light.  If a Boulder liberal can see the truth, perhaps there is hope for America.

Follow Up to Yesterday's iBot Story

Yesterday, I wrote about another health care nightmare, this time from my own country.  Here is a follow up message I received from my friend in California today.

"Yeah, briefly, what happened was that the company could not create a viable market for the iBot because there was too much resistance to it. It was on various fronts. The wheelchair, Sophia's costing $23,900, is comparable to many power wheelchairs. Her friend got a regular power chair last year that cost $17,000." 

"Everyone found excuses to avoid funding the iBot. Government-run health plans, including Medi-Cal (California's Medicaid) would not pay for it. Private insurance companies would not pay for it by saying it was not medically necessary. Some plans even had specific exclusions that mentioned iBot by name. Only the VA was buying them for veterans."

"Even the disabled community would not support it, for various reasons. They would either complain that a chair that could go up stairs or curbs would discourage businesses from adapting and complying with ADA. Or they felt it was a dangerous device. Or they would complain about the cost. Millions invested and lost in all this too."

That last paragraph is just stunning!  THAT is precisely why the government shouldn't be involved in private matters.  The power of the atrocious and rights-violating ADA is keeping many disabled people from having the latest and greatest technology, much less our soldiers coming home from war.  :-(

The Problem With Illegal Immigration is That It's Illegal!

It's just disgusting that our immoral and out of control government puts people through this.

Hotaru Ferschke just wants to raise her 8-month-old son in his grandparents' Tennessee home, surrounded by photos and memories of the father he'll never meet: a Marine who died in combat a month after marrying her from thousands of miles away.

Sgt. Michael Ferschke was killed in Iraq in 2008, leaving his widow and infant son, both Japanese citizens, in immigration limbo: A 1950s legal standard meant to curb marriage fraud means U.S. authorities do not recognize the marriage, even though the military does.

--

The Ferschke family is hoping a private bill introduced by U.S. Rep. John Duncan this summer will allow Hotaru to stay in the U.S., but each setback has become a reminder of their loss. A private bill affects the case of just one person, rather than changing the law as a whole.

"We still have a hard time accepting this," Robin Ferschke said. "We're trying to go forward, celebrate his life, but then every time we turn around we get a constant reminder."

--

"She's like my daughter," Robin Ferschke said. "I know my child chose the perfect wife and mother of his child."

The last time I was up in an airplane, I observed that there's plenty of room for more people in this country.  In addition, if the government would sell off the huge portion of the American west that "they" own, we'd have even more room and resources!

And finally, if we truly had free markets/capitalism in this country, it wouldn't matter that "immigrants don't pay taxes" (which is false anyway, but under a capitalist society, you wouldn't need this giant welfare, statist government hogging up all our money) or that "their kids clog up the school system" (only because the government school system is awful) or that "our hospitals are already overcrowded" (because of government intervention into the health care system.)

Neither me nor my husband would be here today if it weren't for immigrants coming to this nation to find a better place to raise their families.  Whether they're illegal or legal, they all come for the same reason and deserve the right to move freely on this planet as a human being.  

Yet Another Awful Health Care Story (From the USA!)

An Objectivist friend of mine in California has a disabled child and they got her an iBot wheelchair more than a year ago.  While watching So You Think You Can Dance the other night, I noticed one of the contestant's mother has one.  I told Santiago, my husband, about it, but couldn't find the demonstration video online anymore.  I sent my California  friend a message via Facebook to see if he had the link.

He told me, "Her wheelchair is the iBot 4000 Mobility System. You might be able to find it at http://www.facebook.com/l/22b4f;www.ibotnow.com but I'm not sure because they got discontinued.  (Don't get me started on why, but let's just say it's Atlas shrugging.)  You might poke around and look for videos on YouTube or elsewhere too."

After seeing the demonstration video myself more than a year ago and after hearing how wonderful this breakthrough medical technology been for my friend's daughter, it just makes me sick to my stomach that this wonderful device is no longer available to those who need it.  Thanks Big Government!  
From the last link: 

Because of certain FDA certifications / ratings relating to safety, we cannot sell and distribute the iBOT with a prescription and user training.  We really wish we could sell them to roboticists, but unfortunately, that would result in loosing the very costly certification.

Obama and Bush, Two Sides of the Same Coin

Who would've ever thought I would post links from The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in the same blog entry?  (Much less agree with the former?)  :-)

Evidently, Obama is going back on his word to repeal the USA Patriot Act.

He's also no better than Bush when it comes to separating church and state.

As the WSJ article points out, correctly, it's interesting that no one in the media or on the left seems to mind.  The hypocrisy is stunning.  (Thanks to Diana Hsieh for bringing the WSJ article to my attention via her blog.)

A Fitting Tribute to 9-11

We have this giclée in our living room, but I've never read the letter that appears below the image of this piece on the Cordair Gallery website. (Click here and scroll down to see it...it's brilliant!) Now I love this painting all the more!

It made me so mad after 9-11 when movie companies and such rushed to remove the image of the towers from their films. I wanted to see it, so desperately, in all its glory. I wanted to remember it for what it was, not the burning hole the stupid press made us look at for weeks on end. I am so glad I can see them every day now, forever captured in this wonderful Larsen painting.

9-11

Here is a great link for 9-11. We shouldn't just "never forget" what happened on 9-11, but we should figure out why it happened, what caused it and what we can do to prevent it.  Here is another good article and a relevant quote:

"Men who believe absurdities will commit atrocities" 
- Voltaire 

Your immediate reaction to that quote is probably to agree with it, but what "absurdities" do you believe in?  Are you living rationally and for your own happiness, or are you mystic that is sacrificing your happiness in the hopes that you'll be happy in some Utopian afterlife? If we are to fight terrorism successfully, turn around this nation's economy and prevent our government from taking over every aspect of our lives, Americans need to work out their contradictions and understand that each of us is not a sacrificial animal to the other. Altruism is the gateway to tyranny, dictatorships and death, as radical Islam (i.e. religion) and all other forms of mysticism, have so eloquently demonstrated throughout history.

Here's Your Sign!

This story I read several days ago so clearly illustrates the problem with the Republican party, and why I'm not a card-carrying member anymore. They are not the party of capitalism and individual rights as they would have us believe, they don't know what the proper moral function of government is and they're not any better than the Democrats because they operate on the same immoral principle that we are each other's keeper (altruism.) Ayn Rand says it best in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal in the essay The Anatomy of Compromise:

Since both parties hold altruism as their basic moral principle, both advocate a welfare state or mixed economy as their ultimate goal. Every government control imposed on the economy (regardless in whose favor) necessitates the imposition of further controls, to alleviate - momentarily - the disasters caused by the first control. Since the Democrats are more consistently committed to the growth of government power, the Republicans are reduced to helpless "me-too'ing," inept plagiarism of any program initiated by the Democrats, and to the disgraceful confession implied in their claim that they seek to achieve "the same ends" as the Democrats, but by different means.

Since I certainly can't say it any better, I'll just leave it at that. For more information on capitalism, how it can save our country, solve the health care crisis, solve the financial crisis (and any other government-created crisis), and make all of our lives better, I highly recommend Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

Horror Story from France

A few Saturdays ago, Santiago and I went to a friend's house for a garage sale. As the four of us were sitting in the garage and talking, one of our last customers of the day stopped by. It was a mother with a 20-something year old daughter on crutches. The mother saw my removable cast/boot for sale (from my broken leg), and asked if I'd be willing to donate it to a charity that provides them to low income people and/or third world countries. I said sure. (See? And some of you thought I was not concerned with the welfare of others! I'm quite benevolent, VOLUNTARILY. I don't need the government to FORCE me to do anything! I paid $300 for that cast/boot and I can't even itemize deductions on my tax return. So there! :-P ) Then we got into a conversation about my broken leg, my out of pocket expenses, etc., and she and her daughter told me that her out of pocket expenses have reached $100,000! I asked them what was wrong with her and they began to tell us a nightmare story. My mouth was literally open. Her daughter was in France three years ago and while crossing the street, was hit by a cab driver doing about 60 mph while running a red light. Her left leg had fractures up and down all the bones, her spleen was ruptured and she had facial injuries, among other things...I can't remember the entire laundry list of what was wrong with her. An ambulance was called, but when it arrived it had no idea what to do with her. They said they literally had no place to take her and they weren't equipped to help her. They suggested she "sleep it off" and go to a clinic the next morning. The girl's friends helped her to her hotel room and then to a clinic the next morning. At the clinic, the girl was told an emergency MRI would be two weeks out, but they were pretty sure she had internal bleeding. (Ya think?!) Needless to say, the girl's family got her out of France as soon as possible and back to the states. She did not get care at a hospital the whole time she was in France. I just can't imagine being hit by a car and not taken to a hospital. If I hadn't been hearing the story with my own ears, I'm not sure I would've believed it. Both her and her mother were angry and passionate about the fact that the govt is causing the current problems in our health care system. The mother said back in the 60s, health care wasn't this expensive, but as the government has intruded farther and farther into the health care industry, she's seen prices sky rocket. It was funny because I looked at them and said, "You're looking at 4 capitalists here and we agree completely that the solution to our health care crisis can be solved by free markets." They seemed as relieved as we did that they aren't the only ones out there that feel this way. Anyway, I had just taken FIRM flyers out of my purse to make room for garage sale/weekend stuff (darn it!), but I did tell the mother about FIRM and their website. I wanted to tell you now, for whatever it may be worth.

Come and Take It!

At first, this story scared me a bit.

NLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites. The information to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”

The more I think about it though, the less scared I am and the more angry I get. I don't want to live in a world where I can't speak my mind, so if they don't like what I have to say, I say, "Come and Take It!" What a bunch of cowardly, un-American pigs these politicians are.